I’m glad that Jamie wrote this book. The Intellivision is a console that I didn’t know much about. The first time I heard about it was on an Angry Video Game Nerd episode, so I didn’t learn much about it besides the basics.
It came out at an interesting time. Home consoles were trying to bring an arcade experience into the living room, and personal computers were starting to get released to the public. Several consoles, including the Intellivision, seemed to want to be both a video game console and, eventually, a home computer.
Several companies tried this. None of those companies succeed in the long run. That is only part of the story.
Jamie does an excellent job of explaining how Mattel got into video games and why they left the market. There is a lot of information in this book. Some of it is presented through rose-tinted glasses, which isn’t bad. Jamie’s books present a positive image of his subject as he has a personal connection with the consoles and computers he writes about.
Mattel Electronics
Jamie tells the history of Mattel Electronics. This also gets into how the video game industry started. This feels like a section that is in every book that talks about video game history. While it starts in a familiar place, it does get into the handheld games more than other histories.
Mattel got into the video game market with handheld LCD games. These ran into the same issue that other LCD games had. You reach a limit of what can be done on them. They were successful for Mattel, which helped convince them to enter the home console market.
The Intellivision was far ahead of the Atari 2600, and the games looked much better. The system was also capable of being more complex than Atari’s console. Jamie also goes over the games that Mattel Electronics and APH made.
I like how these games are described. Many of them were combinations of other popular arcade games. Mattel couldn’t get licenses for the Atari-owned arcade games, but they could try to make their own. This is how we got Astrosmash and other games.
Mattel was able to get third-party support, including from Atari. It is fascinating that these companies made games for the other consoles. Coleco and Intellivision also made attachments to allow Atari 2600 games to be played on their consoles.
Keyboards and Modular Computers
The keyboard add-on is the big thing here. This was an interesting time in video games and computers. For some reason, the early companies weren’t content with making video games and home consoles. They wanted to make a modular computer that used the video game console as a trojan horse.
Coleco, AFP, and Mattel all tried this. More companies went this route, but my memory is failing me at the moment. Atari decided to make computers, and I don’t think they tried to make the 2600 into a module for the 400 and 800 computers. If I’m wrong, please correct me.
Jamie does an excellent job of telling the troubled history of the keyboard add-on. It was delayed multiple times, the price kept creeping up, and other computers passed it. The keyboard was eventually released but as a mail-order product.
1983 was an odd year for Mattel. Jamie focuses on the two CESs that took place that year. They announced new products and a redesign of the Intellivision. He also brings up that there was some talk of a successor console.
The Mattel Aquarius was unveiled at the Summer CES in 1983. Jamie says that the computer was an underpowered computer that no one asked for and fewer wanted. I’m not even sure it was important to the Intellivision story.
Mattel had the same problems as other console manufacturers in the early 80s. They didn’t know how to pivot from their aging console to a new one. This was before consumers were conditioned to abandon old consoles for newer ones incompatible with older software.
The products that Mattel tried to bring to the market weren’t as successful as the Intellivision. Mattel was able to attract third-party support, but by 1983, the home console market was collapsing. This leads us to the crash’s impact on Mattel Electronics and Intellivision.
After the Crash
I like how Jamie explains what happened to Mattel, Mattel Electronics, and the different versions of Intellivision as a company. Mattel’s involvement ended in 1984. Mattel Electronics lost 300 million dollars in 1983 and laid off over 1,000 employees.
Despite the quality of the games on the console, Mattel sold off the rights to the Intellivision and exited the video game market for a while. On February 4, 1984, Mattel left the video game market. A group of investors led by Terrence Valeski bought the rights, inventory, and mailing list of Intellivision owners from Mattel and other companies.
In 1985, Valeski bought out the other investors and changed the new company’s name to INTV Corporation. INTV would release more games and would sell Intellivision games in cost-reduced packaging. They would last until 1990.
After INTV left the video game market, Keith Robinson and the Blue Sky Rangers stepped in to keep Intellivision alive. They would release compilations of Intellivision games and tried to remaster some of them. This version of Intellivision was a licensing company.
A few of the flashback consoles and emulation are brought up. Jamie talks about them and some of the problems with them as well. The homebrew scene and collecting are covered. Jamie doesn’t go into detail about the homebrew scene, but it is covered here.
The collecting scene is interesting and speaks more towards the diminishing interest in the Intellivision brand. The games are very cheap when compared to other retro consoles. I’m not sure why, but the Atari 2600, Intellivision, and ColecoVision games aren’t all that popular from a collecting standpoint.
There are collectors for the systems released in the 70s and 80s. However, there aren’t many, and most of them have the games they want. Mattel and INTV sold close to 4 million consoles. Not everyone who played the system remembers it fondly.
The Amico Section
I’m glad that he brought this up. It isn’t all that important for the Mattel Intellivision story, but it does carry the system’s name. I think Jamie gave it the appropriate amount of space. It’s about a page long.
Jamie keeps things neutral and sticks to the facts. Tommy Talarico was behind the company; he promised a system, but it was delayed and looks like it won’t be released. The drama around the system is left out of the book as much of it isn’t important to the story.
The pandemic is blamed for some delays, which isn’t entirely true. It probably played a part but was more of a convenient scapegoat. Unfortunately, much of the communication coming from Intellivision was being filtered through a liar, so we have to take it with a grain of salt.
There is a lot to the Amico story. None of it is relevant to Mattel or the first console war. It does bring us up to date on what happened with the Intellivision brand. It should be the focus of its own book.
Final Thoughts
The story of the Intellivision is a fascinating one. Mattel took some chances and created a unique system. The games were good, but they weren’t enough to overcome the video game crash where retailers lost confidence in video games.
Jamie does an excellent job of telling the story of Mattel’s Intellivision. It is an interesting console, and the community that has sprung up around it is very passionate. While it isn’t as popular or well-known as other retro systems, it is a cool part of video game history.
This is an excellent book about a subject that isn’t covered much. Usually, I see the Intellivision mentioned when talking about Atari or when video games in the early 80s are covered in other books. It is great to see a book cover this.
I wonder what Jamie is going to cover next. I usually learn something from his books; seeing him cover this is great. I’m glad that I read this book and that Jamie took the time to document all of this information about consoles that don’t get much attention.