Atari SA announced that it has purchased the Intellivision brand and “certain games”.
What is Atari getting exactly?
- One less competitor
- The Intellivision trademark and brand
- The incomplete, unreleased Amico platform
- The Intellivision game library consisting of some 200-ish titles.
It looks like Atari intend to bring the Amico console to market. That’s a surprising decision, considering that they are now supporting the Atari VCS and Atari 2600+ systems. It might have made more sense for Atari to put Amico titles on the VCS rather than try to launch another console. Adding another misbegotten console to their lineup will not benefit the company — it will only serve to divide up the already tiny Atari customer base and increase the companies expenses in supporting another console that doesn’t have enough customers. Considering that Atari is just barely supporting the VCS, it seems crazy for them to split their customer base by resurrecting the Amico from the dead and trying to complete the promise made by Intellivision more than five years ago.
I think it makes sense to buy the Intellivision brand and IP, if it can be had for a bargain basement price. I’m not aware of which games Atari will now own, but whatever they are, having the rights to use those titles, characters and other IPs would be an opportunity for Atari. But what games are they? What unique game titles did Mattel produce for Intellivision back in the day, that would still hold value for nostalgic retrogamers today? I can’t think of too many. B-17 Bomber, Astrosmash, Shark! Shark! …that’s about it, really. And that’s… not much. Most Intellivision titles had generic-sounding names like “Football” or “Sea Battle” and none of them produced anything like a trademarkable, charismatic mascot to carry the brand.