“Our potential to start manufacturing Amico consoles in quantity requires securing further funding,” says Intellivision.
There’s yet one more twist within the long-running Intellivision Amico saga, as the corporate says it nonetheless wants extra money earlier than it may well start manufacturing the long-in-gestation console.
To get you in control, the saga started again in 2018, when videogame music composer Tommy Tallarico introduced plans to relaunch the Eighties Intellivision console after shopping for the rights to the corporate the 12 months beforehand. The newly redesigned console could be referred to as the Intellivision Amico, and would function wi-fi, touchscreen controllers, with a agency give attention to family-friendly video games.
The preliminary launch date was set for October 2020, with the console priced at $249 for the black and white variations, and $279 for a woodgrain impact model. The firm raised hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in crowdfunding by means of platforms like Fig. But then got here the primary of many delays, as the discharge date was pushed again to April 2021, then October 2021. Ars Technica questioned the excessive value of the console contemplating the tech inside it, whereas Kotaku declared the console a “big automobile crash”.
Tallarico stepped down as CEO of Intellivision in February 2022, and the Intellivision Amico has nonetheless but to be launched. Now, in a press release noticed by Brandon Sheffield and reported by Time Extension, Intellivision has stated it doesn’t have the cash to make the console.
“Our potential to start manufacturing Amico consoles in quantity requires securing further funding,” reads an replace from Intellivision.
To supply that funding, the agency is releasing a smartphone app referred to as Amico Home, which the agency says will flip your Android machine “into an Intellivision Amico gaming console”. The app has been launched with two video games, Astrosmash and Missile Command, with Shark! Shark! and Side Swipers being promised additional down the road.
Intellivision says that the discharge of Amico Home will put it “on a greater footing” to draw funding, and that it hopes to ultimately fund manufacturing of the Intellivision Amico console from the proceeds of Amico Home recreation gross sales. “We stay devoted to transferring Intellivision ahead, step-by-step, till we will ship on the total imaginative and prescient of Amico, together with the consoles,” reads the replace from new CEO Phil Adam. “Thank you to all of our console pre-order and boxed version recreation clients for supporting our mission to carry individuals along with easy, reasonably priced, household leisure.”
Last 12 months, YouTuber hbomberguy printed a prolonged video trying into the various ins and outs of the Intellivision Amico story, and Slope’s Games Room has made a four-hour documentary on the identical topic. In brief, there’s so much happening right here – and it’s nonetheless happening.
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