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Atari VCS, Amico, Micro Consoles

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Kairon:
A lot of what you say is very true. The reason the NintendoLife interview stands out for someone who's been keeping semi-up-to-date on this is because the bar has essentially been set SO low by the lack-of-coherent-marketing they've had for the past two years. It's hyperbole to say that they've had a $0 marketting budget so far, but only technically... And yes, Tommy Tallarico can talk, but if they want to continue doing things publicly they really need to get a professional in front of the camera.

I think the Amico is far beyond past things we've seen from vaporware consoles, there are actual accounts and recent public events where prototypes have been played, and even some footage I believe. HOWEVER for some reason they're not publicizing this, and the only people trumpeting and talking about these hands-on experiences are their diehard community members.

Yes, they're on the defensive in that interview, which means that they're not fully in control of the message, but their default until now has been to have NO message essentially. The defensiveness is great not so much because that's what they wanted to do, but because it's dragging them out into the spotlight a little and forcing them to divulge some stuff that, really, they oughta have been talking about anyways.

I'm not about to preorder one of these just yet. (There's an extreme dearth of specifics about what will happen at Launch, which is just a non-starter for me.) However, like you, I find this whole saga fascinating.

Order.RSS:

--- Quote from: Kairon on July 15, 2021, 08:38:54 PM ---I think the Amico is far beyond past things we've seen from vaporware consoles, there are actual accounts and recent public events where prototypes have been played, and even some footage I believe. HOWEVER for some reason they're not publicizing this, and the only people trumpeting and talking about these hands-on experiences are their diehard community members.

--- End quote ---

Yeah, I do think Amiico will eventually launch, and it will probably be a functional gaming console. They might miss another launch date along the way, but it'll probably release. Looking on Youtube they've shown a lot of games intended to show up on it.

I didn't realize they just had no coherent messaging before, so in that regard this interview is quite an improvement lol. But like you say, when the bar is on the floor it's hard to hit your head against it.

ThePerm:
The internet is going all crazy over the Valve Steam Deck, and all I can think of is meh.

Kairon:

--- Quote from: ThePerm on July 19, 2021, 01:38:25 AM ---The internet is going all crazy over the Valve Steam Deck, and all I can think of is meh.



--- End quote ---

The steamdeck looks like a great piece of tech honestly. So have other handheld pcs in its niche product category too actually, like the GPDWin or Aya Neo. And with Valve's size and ability to make money on the valve ecosystem and the choice to have a low storage 64GB SKU the price is starting to get close enough to bring up comparisons to Nintendo and console instead of full-priced laptops. (Though the much more expensive SKUs are the true full experience, and you have to buy a dock separately, so the more appropriate comparison is against the Switch Lite.)

I think it looks pretty neat but the biggest question is how much of a mass market product it's going to be. It sounds like reservations are already stretching into 2022 so I don't think they're planning to manufacture huge quantities of it and right now I'd guess it's probably going to be pretty niche when it first arrives purely due to unit quantities available. That right now seems to be the biggest limit on it. That and a lack of an audience rallying "killer app" to market it with (Half-Life 3?).

I think the more interesting thing about it is it offers either a comparison or a ceiling to a future Switch 2, both in price and performance. My take right now is that an eventual Switch 2 from Nintendo will be slightly under the raw performance of this Steam Deck, or match it, but due to being a closed system will be able to look more optimized in actual outcomes. And Nintendo will also probably have to be aware of that when pricing a Switch 2.

Kairon:
A recent youtube video from Intellision themselves showing an office party and some prototypes and demos going on ended on a segment where they were talking about cornhole, which is one of their pack-in titles. (Cornhole is also one of the three main Amico games I'm actually interested in.) Putting aside the question of whether it's going to be a fun way to play the game or not, the fact that they're still tinkering and considering up-ending the tea table on one of their launch pack-in games at this stage gives me pause. Motion controls in videogames are a decade and a half old by now, demonstrated by plenty of examples not just from Nintendo but devs at every level of the industry, even with limited accelerometer performance. It would have been more encouraging to see them more locked in to a vision for this simple game concept at this point.

Also it strongly suggests that Cornhole is being developed internally, and I wonder if that's part of the situation. I wonder if they might be closer to a final product if only they'd found some external indie dev who has experience doing motion controls and having them do this game for them.

It also reminded me that while the content of these games have been approved by official ratngs boards, the actual gameplay underpinning that content could definitely still be in flux and not finished. I wonder just how much crunch they've got ahead of them for some of these games...

UPDATE: Apparently the game isn't being completely redone, they claim this is more of a late stage controls experiment in order to find alternative control methods that play better than what they currently have? And that the game is being developed externally in Germany... hmmm Well, not quite as dramatic then, but still worrisome that they haven't nailed down yet exactly what they want, but with game development it's true that sometimes stuff doesn't come together until very late. (Additional Update: Some information in an interview with Intellivision's CFO/COO seems to contradict this interpretation of events, so maybe this is just a really confusing situation to try to nail down with certainty)

Still, I'll be VERY disappointed with this game if it isn't Wii Sports quality out of the box. I want it to be just pick-up-and-play and not have any weird bowling/golf styles power bars or aiming that isn't motion controlled, I want it to "just work" like Wii Sports felt back in 2006.

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