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PARIS and NEW YORK, May 23, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atari® — one of the world's most iconic consumer brands and interactive entertainment producers — announced today it has purchased the Intellivision brand and certain games from Intellivision Entertainment LLC. Intellivision Entertainment LLC will rebrand and continue its business of developing and distributing the Amico brand game console with a license from Atari to continue to distribute new versions of the Intellivision games on the Amico console.

Atari will seek to expand digital and physical distribution of legacy Intellivision games, potentially create new games, and explore brand and licensing opportunities as part of a long-term plan to create value from the Intellivision properties.

“Uniting Atari and Intellivision after 45 years ends the longest-running console war in history,” said Mike Mika, Studio Head at Digital Eclipse, an Atari-owned game studio.

The first Intellivision home video game console was released by Mattel Electronics in 1979 and the console platform sold an estimated 5 million units through 1990. Atari and Intellivision arguably fought the first console war of consequence in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Mattel went as far as enlisting the actor George Plimpton to appear in a series of ads comparing the two systems, as well as an eight-minute-long video shown at the Gamescom trade show.

“This was a very rare opportunity to unite former competitors and bring together fans of Atari, Intellivision and the golden age of gaming,” said Wade Rosen, Chairman and CEO of Atari.

The purchase includes the rights to more than 200 titles from the Intellivision portfolio and the Intellivision trademarks.

“Atari has been a valuable partner and we have every confidence they will be a responsible steward of the storied Intellivision brand,” said Phil Adam, CEO of Intellivision Entertainment. “We look forward to our expanded collaboration and bringing a broad array of new Atari and Intellivision titles to the Amico and Amico Home family gaming platforms.”

To mark the occasion, new Intellivision t-shirts are available starting today on Atari.com, with more Intellivision apparel and collectibles to come.

A press kit including the Atari and Intellivision logos, and new Intellivision t-shirts can be found here: https://uberstrategist.link/Intellivision-Press-Kit

Atari Acquires Intellivision Brand

Purchase of Intellivision Trademarks and Games Unites Competing Brands from the ‘70s and ‘80sPARIS and NEW YORK, May 23, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atari® — one of the world's most iconic consumer brands and interactive entertainment producers — announced today it has purchased the Intellivision...

finance.yahoo.com

 

[asdasdasdbb]

What year is it?

 

[Topher]

Finally. Atari is relevant again.

 

[fart town usa]

Still curious if my wood grain Amico will ever be manufactured. I have access to the Amico discord but haven't checked it in months.

 

[Loomy]

Yahoo! Search acquires Ask.com

 

[TrippleA345]

To mark the occasion, new Intellivision t-shirts are available starting today on Atari.com

finally, i can buy tshirts after decades

 

[MonkeyClaw36]

Cool! 1 outdated POS acquires another outdated POS.

Kinda like 2 elderly people dating....

 

[Draugoth]

 

[AJUMP23]

Now all they need is activation and they are back to their full power.

Atari has one of the best Logos of all time.

The Atari logo: behind “the Fuji” | Logo Design Love

Affectionately nicknamed “the Fuji,” the Atari logo, designed by George Opperman, still persists as a lasting part of popular culture.

www.logodesignlove.com

 

[CLW]

Atari gets its REVENGE for my Intellivision with Atari adapter

 

[BennyBlanco]

Colecovision in shambles, console wars are over

 

[King Dazzar]

Intellivison are amongst my best early gaming memories. The controller was terrible for long sessions though, with the disc edge groove always hurting my thumb!

 

[ReBurn]

Still curious if my wood grain Amico will ever be manufactured. I have access to the Amico discord but haven't checked it in months.

I would probably cancel that preorder

 

[fart town usa]

I would probably cancel that preorder

 

[MadchesterManc]

Must have made some bank on that 50th Anniversary collection

 

[ReBurn]

I hope they drop anthologies of classic games like they did with the Atari Flashback Classics. I have an Intellivision Lives cart for my DS, but I'd really like to play Night Stalker on PS Portal.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

RIP Xbox

 

[Diseased Yak]

Dogs and cats, living together!

 

[Evil Calvin]

Basically all Intellivison games suck. Now....Colecovision and Activision 2600 games were very decent.

 

[Deerock71]

 

[Hudo]

I wasn't alive when Atari vs. Intellivision (vs. Colecovision) was a thing but it must feel hella weird for the old geezers who lived back then.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

This would’ve been such a megaton announcement in, like, 1982

 

[ReBurn]

I wanted Amico to be a thing because I'm a fan of simple pick up and play games and some of their concepts looked fun. But with Tommy Tallarico at the helm it was never meant to be.

 

[Plague Doctor]

Their mothers must be proud.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I find it amazing that Atari has lived on.

 

[shoplifter]

I wasn't alive when Atari vs. Intellivision (vs. Colecovision) was a thing but it must feel hella weird for the old geezers who lived back then.

It's absolutely bizarre as someone that was all in on Intellivision. It feels completely wrong.

 

[King Dazzar]

I find it amazing that Atari has lived on.

And for me that Intellivision is something that can be acquired.

 

[fart town usa]

I wanted Amico to be a thing because I'm a fan of simple pick up and play games and some of their concepts looked fun. But with Tommy Tallarico at the helm it was never meant to be.

Yea, I preordered it out of curiosity and wasn't aware that the thing had been announced a few years prior. I figured the E3 presentation was the unveiling and it looked like a charming mini game box. Now I'm just morbidly curious.

A few games are in android/ios but you have to have two separate devices. One functions as the screen, the other device is the controller. It's destined for failure. Overly obtuse process to play games that aren't worth the price. They sell for like $15, I got two for free because of the pre-order.

 

[clem84]

Still curious if my wood grain Amico will ever be manufactured. I have access to the Amico discord but haven't checked it in months.

I chose wood grain as well. I kinda gave up this was ever going to be released to be honest, but I would still be happy if it did. The games look fun.

 

[Alebrije]

On other news of Medieval console war, "Atari buys Intellevision"

 

[nush]

These corporate buyouts are getting out of control!

 

[Miyazaki’s Slave]

All IP is valuable, most would argue that IP is the ONLY thing of value in our industry.

 

[ReBurn]

I find it amazing that Atari has lived on.

I'm glad they haven't completed faded away. Some of their recharged titles are a lot of fun. I love Yars Recharged.

 

[nani17]

Haha you fucking intellanoobs have to play our super atari 2600. Nothing beats 128 bytes of memory

 

[nowhat]

I find it amazing that Atari has lived on.

I mean... it hasn't. The brand still lives on, and has been licensed by multiple companies. But Atari of yore is as dead as they come.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Intellivison are amongst my best early gaming memories. The controller was terrible for long sessions though, with the disc edge groove always hurting my thumb!

Mine too. Friends had atari with wood grain, I had intellivision. It was kinda crazy how many versions of it there was. I had aunt and uncle with the black one, mine was tan from sears.

I remember playing a bunch of games, but what I remember most is Nightstalker, shark shark, Burgertime, Ad&D, and Astrosmash as a 6 year old.

Never really valued it as I was so young. NES really had my attention though, along with everyone else in 1986.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Intellivision had the superior specs to the 2600, but not the support. It was the first 16bit gaming console (it actually was, lol) It was also licensed to different companies to make, so there was different versions of it, while Atari 2600/vcs was just that. It could of thrived with more software support, check out the differences (although sligthy slower but 16bit, but has less instructions per second, the graphics capabilites on intellivision were much better along with bigger cart size):

Atari VCS / 2600:

• 1MHz 8-bit 6507 CPU, capable of ~300,000 instructions/second (typical).
• 128 bytes of RAM.
• Simplistic tone/noise generator for SFX.
• 2 hardware sprites w/ programmable images, 3 hardware sprites with fixed shapes (rectangles). Sprites could be repositioned during active display to a limited extent, allowing for the appearance of more in some cases.
• CPU generates the display by writing a single line of pixels to a line buffer, literally chasing the beam.
  • Plus side: You had a palette of ~256 colors to play with and a lot of flexibility generating the display.
  • Minus side: You used a heckload of your CPU time generating the display, every frame.
• ROM cartridges limited to 2K bytes without add’l hardware in the cartridge. (Add’l hardware was quite common before long.)
• Classic 8-direction, 1-button joyticks; also support for analog paddles.

Intellivision:

• 895kHz 16-bit CP-1610 CPU, capable of ~100,000 instructions/second
• 1436 bytes of RAM (mix of 8-bit, 16-bit data memory and 8-bit, 16-bit display memory)
• Built-in EXEC with game routines, built-in GROM with alphanumerics and graphic tiles
• 3-tone + 1-noise sound generator
• 8 hardware sprites w/ programmable shapes and hardware collision detection. Cannot be moved during active display, so you get only 8.
• STIC generates display from 20x12 character grid + graphics RAM and ROM.
  • Plus side: The STIC offloads a ton of work from the CPU.
  • Minus side: You’re stuck with a character grid’s limitations, and only 16 colors, 8 of which are harder to get to than the rest.
• ROM cartridges can be up to 52K words (104K bytes) without additional bankswitching hardware.
• 16-direction disc + 12-button keypad + 3 unique fire buttons. (4 actual buttons, but 2 were wired together).

 

[Kadve]

I find it amazing that Atari has lived on.

If You mean Infogrames wearing the skin of Atari. Yea its kinda amazing.

 

[VolticArchangel]

A LOT OF GAMING RACISTS IN THIS THREAD.

FUCK YOU ALL.

 

[ReyBrujo]

Nice, so Atari will be releasing the Amiico finally.

 

[Calverz]

The console war is over. Rejoice!

 

[CLW]

And for me that Intellivision is something that can be acquired.

 

[00_Zer0]

I want them to approach Warner Brothers and buy the old Atari and Midway license. I know it won't happen, but WB is letting those games go to waste.

 

[Sintoid]

Lol Im so old that I was already multiplatform at that time (Intelli + Coleco)

 

[Codeblew]

Lol Im so old that I was already multiplatform at that time (Intelli + Coleco)

Me too but I went the computer route: Atari400 + C64

 

[Oddvintagechap]

All you get from this is a nice studio brand logo.

 

[Shadowstar39]

Lol Im so old that I was already multiplatform at that time (Intelli + Coleco)

Me too but I went the computer route: Atari400 + C64

Haha, if you want to go that route I could of said the same with an intellivision - > apple iic - > NES - > hand-me down 8088 (uncle worked at unisys in the 80s so he had got all us kids a pc when they upgraded, as our folks didn't have the cash for that they were expensive)

Intelli was first but the apple was 1985, NES in 1987 and IBM 8088 in 1988. I was most excited about the 8088 as I was getting into AD&D and wanted more advanced rpgs than just dw1, final fantasy and startropics.
Little did I know that the 256k on the 8088 wasn't what the the gold box pools of radiance needed, but listed on the box. That was 265 vram. This was a 4 color cga adapter with a fraction of vram.
I got a few games like times of lore to work, but I didn't get anything good until getting a 386sx in 1990 (that vga goodness, and 1mb of ram, I later upgraded it to 4mb and a 1mb svga card with cd rom and soundblaster pro 32bit., upgrading pcs before most gamers were even born. )

 

[Jigsaah]

Captured footage of the deal going down.

 

[Dacvak]

Maybe Tommy Tallarico can finally afford to move back into his MTV Cribs-certified “mansion”

 

[Codeblew]

Haha, if you want to go that route I could of said the same with an intellivision - > apple iic - > NES - > hand-me down 8088 (uncle worked at unisys in the 80s so he had got all us kids a pc when they upgraded, as our folks didn't have the cash for that they were expensive)

Intelli was first but the apple was 1985, NES in 1987 and IBM 8088 in 1988. I was most excited about the 8088 as I was getting into AD&D and wanted more advanced rpgs than just dw1, final fantasy and startropics.
Little did I know that the 256k on the 8088 wasn't what the the gold box pools of radiance needed, but listed on the box. That was 265 vram. This was a 4 color cga adapter with a fraction of vram.
I got a few games like times of lore to work, but I didn't get anything good until getting a 386sx in 1990 (that vga goodness, and 1mb of ram, I later upgraded it to 4mb and a 1mb svga card with cd rom and soundblaster pro 32bit., upgrading pcs before most gamers were even born. )

Hah, I had access to an apple II and and apple IIe via my rich uncle. I wrote my first program on the Apple IIe. He was a software developer for some helecopter company that I can't remember the name of. I remember playing so many green screen games on those machines. lol. Zork, Wizardry, Some ATC simulator and a bunch of others. One, that I wish I remembered the name of, you would program these little bots to fight each other and then just watch the action.