The
Intellivision is a home video game console released by Mattel Electronics in
1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the
introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. The word intellivision is
a portmanteau of "intelligent television". Over 3 million
Intellivision units were sold and a total of 125 games were released for the
console.
History and development
The Intellivision was developed by Mattel Electronics, a subsidiary of Mattel
formed expressly for the development of electronic games. The console was test
marketed in Fresno, California, in 1979 with a total of four games available, and
was released nationwide in 1980 with a price tag of US$299 and a pack-in game:
Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack. The core of console (CPU and video chip set)
was developed by General Instrument as can be seen from the "Gimini"
book from 1978 (the "Gimini full range 8900 programmable set"). Though
not the first system to challenge Atari, it was the first to pose a serious
threat to Atari's dominance. A series of advertisements featuring George
Plimpton were produced that demonstrated the superiority of the Intellivision's
graphics and sound to those of the Atari 2600, using side-by-side game
comparisons.
One
of the slogans of the television advertisements stated that Intellivision was
"the closest thing to the real thing"; one example in an
advertisement compared golf games. The other console's games had a blip sound
and cruder graphics, while the Intellivision featured a realistic swing sound
and striking of the ball, and graphics that suggested a more 3D look. There was
also an advertisement comparing the Atari 2600 to it, featuring the slogan
"I didn't know".
Like Atari, Mattel marketed their console to a number of retailers as a
rebadged unit. These models include the Radio Shack TandyVision, the
GTE-Sylvania Intellivision, and the Sears Super Video Arcade. The Sears model
was a specific coup for Mattel, as Sears was already selling a rebadged Atari
2600 unit, and in doing so made a big contribution to Atari's success.
In
its first year, Mattel sold 175,000 Intellivision consoles, and the library
grew to 35 games. At this time, all Intellivision games were developed by an
outside firm, APh Technological Consulting. The company recognized that what
had been seen as a secondary product line might be a big business. Realizing
that potential profits are much greater with first party software, Mattel
formed its own in-house software development group.
The
original five members of that Intellivision team were manager Gabriel Baum, Don
Daglow, Rick Levine, Mike Minkoff and John Sohl. Levine and Minkoff, a
long-time Mattel Toys veteran, both came over from the hand-held Mattel games
engineering team. To keep these programmers from being hired away by rival
Atari, their identity and work location was kept a closely guarded secret. In
public, the programmers were referred to collectively as the Blue Sky Rangers.
By
1982, sales were soaring. Over two million Intellivision consoles had been sold
by the end of the year, earning Mattel a $100,000,000 profit. Third-party Atari
developers Activision, and Imagic began releasing games for the Intellivision,
as did hardware rival Coleco. Mattel created "M Network" branded
games for Atari's and Coleco's systems. The most popular titles sold over a
million units each. The Intellivision was also introduced in Japan by Bandai in
1982.
The
original five-person Mattel game development team had grown to 110 people under
new vice president, Baum, while Daglow led Intellivision development and top
engineer Minkoff directed all work on all other platforms.
Keyboard component
Intellivision's packaging and promotional materials, as well as television
commercials, promised that with the addition of a soon-to-be-available
accessory called the "keyboard component", originally portrayed in TV
ads as a larger box with an opening in the top that the Intellivision fit into.
This turned the Intellivision into a fully functional home computer system.
The
unit brought the system's available RAM up to a full 64 KB, a large amount for
the time, and was to have provided both a built-in cassette drive for data
storage and a connection for an optional 40-column thermal printer. The
cassette drive was also planned to be able to provide both data storage and an
audio track simultaneously, allowing for interactive audio recording and
playback under computer control, and a secondary 6502 microprocessor inside the
keyboard component would be programmed to handle all of these extra
capabilities independently of the Intellivision's CP1610 CPU. The unit was even
to provide an extra cartridge slot, allowing the original Intellivision to
remain permanently docked with the keyboard component while still being able to
play standard game cartridges.
However,
while the keyboard component was an ambitious piece of engineering for its
time, it suffered from reliability problems and proved to be expensive to
produce. Originally slated to be available in 1981, the keyboard component was
repeatedly delayed as the engineers tried to find ways to overcome the
reliability issues and reduce manufacturing costs.
The
keyboard component's repeated delays became so notorious around Mattel
headquarters that comedian Jay Leno, when performing at Mattel's 1981 Christmas
party, got his biggest titter of the evening with the line: "You know what
the three big lies are, don't you? 'The check is in the mail,' 'I'll still
respect you in the morning,' and 'The keyboard will be out in spring.
Complaints
from consumers who had chosen to buy the Intellivision specifically on the
promise of a "coming soon" personal-computer upgrade that seemed as
if it would never materialize eventually caught the attention of the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC), who started investigating Mattel Electronics for fraud
and false advertising. Mattel said that the keyboard component was a real
product still being test-marketed and even released a small number of keyboard
components to a handful of retail stores, along with a handful of software
titles in order to support this claim. The FTC eventually ordered Mattel to pay
a $10,000 per day fine until the promised computer upgrade was in full retail
distribution. To protect themselves from the ongoing fines, the keyboard
component was officially canceled in the fall of 1982 and the Entertainment
Computer System (ECS) module offered up in its place.
While
approximately four thousand keyboard components were manufactured before the
module was canceled and recalled, it is not clear how many of them actually
found their way into the hands of Intellivision customers. Today, very few of
them still exist; when the keyboard component was officially canceled, part of
Mattel's settlement with the FTC involved offering to buy back all of the
existing keyboard components from dissatisfied customers. Any customer who
opted to keep theirs was required to sign a waiver indicating their
understanding that no more software would be written for the system and which
absolved Intellivision of any future responsibility for technical support. Several
of the units were later used by Mattel Electronics engineers when it was
discovered that, with a few minor modifications, a keyboard component could be
used as an Intellivision software-development system in place of the original
hand-built development boards.
The
keyboard component debacle was ranked as No. 11 on GameSpy's "25 dumbest
moments in gaming".
Entertainment Computer System (ECS)
In mid-1981, Mattel's upper management was becoming concerned that the keyboard
component division would never be able to produce a sellable product. As a
result, Mattel Electronics set up a competing internal engineering team whose
stated mission was to produce an inexpensive add-on called the "Basic
Development System", or BDS, to be sold as an educational device to
introduce kids to the concepts of computer programming.
The
rival BDS engineering group, who had to keep the project's real purpose a
secret among themselves, fearing that if David Chandler, the head of the
keyboard component team, found out about it he would use his influence to end
the project, eventually came up with a much less expensive alternative.
Originally dubbed the "Lucky", from LUCKI: Low User-Cost Keyboard
Interface, it lacked many of the sophisticated features envisioned for the original
keyboard component. Gone, for example, was the full 64 KB of RAM and the
secondary 6502 CPU; instead, the ECS offered a mere 2 KB RAM expansion, a
built-in BASIC that was marginally functional, plus a much-simplified cassette
and thermal-printer interface.
Ultimately,
this fulfilled the original promises of turning the Intellivision into a
computer, making it possible to write programs and store them to tape, and
interfacing with a printer well enough to allow Mattel to claim that they had
delivered the promised computer upgrade and stop the FTC's mounting fines. It
even offered, via an additional AY-3-8910 sound chip inside the ECS module and
an optional 49-key music synthesizer keyboard, the possibility of turning the
Intellivision into a multi-voice synthesizer which could be used to play or
learn music.
In
the fall of 1982, the LUCKI, now renamed the Entertainment Computer System
(ECS), was presented at the annual sales meeting, officially ending the
ill-fated keyboard component project. A new advertising campaign was aired in
time for the 1982 Christmas season, and the ECS itself was shown to the public
at the January 1983 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas at the Las
Vegas Convention Center. A few months later, the ECS hit the market, and the
FTC agreed to drop the $10K per day fines.
By
the time the ECS made its retail debut, an internal shake-up at the top levels
of Mattel Electronics' management had caused the company's focus to shift away
from hardware add-ons in favor of software, and the ECS received very little
further marketing push. Further hardware developments, including a planned
Program Expander that would have added another 16K of RAM and a more intricate,
fully featured Extended-BASIC to the system, were halted, and in the end less
than a dozen software titles were released for the ECS.
Intellivoice
In 1982, Mattel introduced a new peripheral for the Intellivision: The
Intellivoice, a voice synthesis device which produces speech when used with
certain games. The Intellivoice was original in two respects: not only was this
capability unique to the Intellivision system at the time (although a similar
device was available for the Odyssey², but the speech-supporting games written
for Intellivoice actually made the speech an integral part of the gameplay.
However,
the amount of speech that could be compressed into a 4K or 8K ROM cartridge was
limited, and the system did not sell as well as Mattel had hoped; while the
initial orders were as high as 300,000 units for the Intellivoice module and
its initial game-cartridge offerings, interest in future titles dropped rapidly
until the fourth and last Intellivoice title, Tron: Solar Sailer, sold a mere
90,000 units. A fifth game, a children's title called Magic Carousel, was
shelved, and in August 1983 the Intellivoice system was quietly phased out.
The
four titles available for the Intellivoice system, in order of their release,
were:
Space
Spartans
Bomb
Squad
B-17
Bomber
Tron:
Solar Sailer
A
fifth title, Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, developed as
part of the Entertainment Computer System series, also supports the
Intellivoice if both the ECS and Intellivoice are connected concurrently.
Unlike the Intellivoice-specific games, however, World Series Major League
Baseball is also playable without the Intellivoice module (but not without the
ECS.)
A
further homebrew title, Space Hunt, also uses the male Intellivoice sounds
(especially on its main title screen). This game is a spin-off clone of
Astrosmash, which uses graphics loaned from Utopia and the TRON game series.
Intellivision II
In addition to the ECS module, 1982 also saw the introduction of a redesigned
model, called the Intellivision II (featuring detachable controllers and
sleeker case), the System Changer (which played Atari 2600 games on the
Intellivision II), and a music keyboard add-on for the ECS.
Like
the ECS, Intellivision II was designed first and foremost to be inexpensive to
manufacture. Among other things, the raised bubble keypad of the original hand
controller was replaced by a flat membrane keyboard surface. However, because
many Intellivision games had been designed for users to play by feeling the
buttons without looking down, some of these games were far less playable on
Intellivision II.
Instead
of an internal power supply like the original system had, the Intellivision II
would use an external AC adapter. Its main drawback, however, was that it was a
non-standard power supply – running on 16.2V – meant that if the AC adapter was
lost or damaged, the system could be rendered useless, as replacement power
supplies for that particular voltage requirement were not readily available. It
is unknown whether Intellivision II AC adapters were sold separately.
Mattel
also changed the Intellivision II's internal ROM program (called the EXEC) in
an attempt to lock out unlicensed 3rd party titles. To make room for the
lock-out code while retaining compatibility with existing titles, some portions
of the EXEC code were moved in a way that changed their timing. While most
games were unaffected, a couple of the more popular titles, Shark! Shark!, and
Space Spartans, had certain sound effects that the Intellivision II reproduced
differently than intended, although the games remained playable. Electric
Company Word Fun did not run at all and INTV's later release Super Pro Football
has minor display glitches at the start, both due to the modified EXEC. Mattel's
attempt to lock out competitors' software titles was only temporarily
successful, as the 3rd-party game manufacturers quickly figured out how to get
around it.
Competition and market crash
Amid the flurry of new hardware, there was trouble for the Intellivision. New
game systems (ColecoVision, Emerson Arcadia 2001, Atari 5200, and Vectrex, all
in 1982) were further subdividing the market, and the video game crash put
pressure on the entire industry. The Intellivision team rushed to finish a
major new round of games, including BurgerTime and the ultra-secret 3D glasses
game Hover Force. Although BurgerTime was a popular game on the Intellivision
and was programmed by Blue Sky Ranger Ray Kaestner in record time, the
five-month manufacturing cycle meant that the game did not appear until the
late spring of 1983, after the video game crash had severely damaged game
sales.
In
the spring of 1983, Mattel went from aggressively hiring game programmers to
laying them off within a two-week period. By August, there were massive
layoffs, and the price of the Intellivision II (which launched at $150 earlier
that year) was lowered to $69. Mattel Electronics posted a $300 million loss.
Early in 1984, the division was closed – the first high-profile victim of the
crash.
Intellivision
game sales continued when a liquidator purchased all rights to the
Intellivision and its software from Mattel, as well as all remaining inventory.
After much of the existing software inventory had been sold, former Mattel
Marketing executive Terry Valeski bought all rights to Intellivision and
started a new venture. The new company, INTV Corp., continued to sell old stock
via retail and mail order. When the old stock of Intellivision II consoles ran
out, they introduced a new console dubbed INTV System III. This unit was
actually a cosmetic rebadge of the original Intellivision console (this unit
was later renamed the Super Pro System.) In addition to manufacturing new
consoles, INTV Corp. also continued to develop new games, releasing a few new
titles each year. Eventually, the system was discontinued in 1991.
Re-releases
Intellivision games became readily available again when Keith Robinson, an
early Intellivision programmer responsible for the game TRON: Solar Sailer,
purchased the software rights and founded a new company, Intellivision
Productions. As a result, games originally designed for the Intellivision are
available on PCs and modern-day consoles including the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and
Nintendo GameCube in the Intellivision Lives! package, though all are now out
of print at retail. However, the Xbox version is available for purchase as a
downloadable game through Xbox Live Game Marketplace's Xbox Originals service
for the Xbox 360. VH1 Classic and MTV Networks released 6 Intellivision games
to iOS. A few licensed Intellivision games are available through the GameTap
subscription gaming service. Also, several LCD handheld and direct-to-TV games
have been released in recent years.
On
March 24, 2010, Microsoft launched the Game Room service for Xbox Live and
Games for Windows Live. This service includes support for Intellivision titles
and allows players to compete against one another for high scores via online
leaderboards. At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft announced a
version of Game Room for Windows Phone, promising a catalog of 44 Intellivision
titles.
On
October 1, 2014, AtGames Digital Media, Inc., under license from Intellivision
Productions, Inc., released the Intellivision Flashback Classic Console, a miniature
sized Intellivision console with two original sized controllers. It comes with
60 Intellivision games built into ROM.
