Intellivision Closes Amico Fundraising Ahead Of Schedule

Woah! Shocking news from a company that I keep forgetting still exists today.

When will people learn to NEVER back any crowdfunding?

This site does bear a bit of responsibility for pushing this one so hard. Got to wonder who’s in with Tommy because I’ve seen other people that I genuinely respected as journalists promoting this garbage fire as well, rather reminiscent of what we’re seeing now with some and NFTs.

@CowCatcher

😂😂😂

Don't have to angle for a free review unit anymore when they won't exist!

Watched the trailer and everything about this console just looks like complete garbage.

"Consoles became more expensive so we're giving you a console just as expensive with even less incentive to buy it cause there only a handful of games on this piece of crap".

I was rooting for both the Atari and the Intellivision. I really was. (I backed neither because I don't have faith in stuff like this.) Anyone know if the Spectrum Next is legit or not?

I'll be honest. This thing looks like a device that hospitals loan out to patients with rare blood diseases.

Ahh it was so entertaining, sad the Show is coming to an End.
Especially with Pat (the NES Punk) and Ian from the CU Podcast.

At this point they may as well just put their games on Switch or Steamdeck.

I mean, I get the idea. Truly I do.

But the world has mostly moved on from these kinds of experiences, or they can be had any number of other ways. Unless Amico would hit the market for $50 or less, I never saw this as being anything more than a footnote in the history books.

I'm surprised they haven't outright canned the entire project.

Please, let it die. While I am all for the nostalgia factor, this has been a disaster in the making. Don't waste money trying to bring this to market.

The history of this site and this product is embarrassing. People lost money because you were excited about landing an interview....

@Tasuki @CowCatcher

So true, they had no Prototype, no History of prior Releases.
Somehow People wanted to take a Site or believe in this.

Btw. i had no Idea who that Tommy Talarico was before.

I wonder what will happen to that new Earthworm Jim game (made by the original makers) that was supposed to release on this.

The only reason anyone cared about this is for EWJ4, and even people who cared about it (me) really only cared enough about it being released in a six month exclusivity window before the reviews either warranted or shut down the idea of an eventual port to real platforms.

But since I also try to abide by my own presets of moral codes I espouse, supporting the art of a terrible, wholly sh*tty individual like Doug TenNapel isn’t something I really wanted to have to do, despite my ongoing love for the IP he created twenty-eight years ago.

Then again, I still love and appreciate Koichi Sugiyama’s brilliant DQ compositions, so maybe I can use the excuse of, “oh, he’s dead, it’s okay to appreciate his music now,” or does that somehow make it worse?

Whatever. Let the Amico die. Please.

Honestly, it seems like every six months or so there's another article that makes me predict this will never see the light of day. Literally from day one all I've heard was "it's going to come out, but it will be later than we expected and will cost more than we promised. Because reasons".

Ah, i'm going to miss all of this. It's been fun.

@iLikeUrAttitude All the games look like stuff that's already on the nintendo eshop for like 5 bucks a pop.

Remember guyz, it doesn't matter that it was a scam all that matters are the friends, who helped perpetrate the scam, that we made along the way!

Agreed with others that NL editorial seemed far too accommodating long after Amico turned into an obvious scam. Just my opinion but I hope NL will take this criticism to heart.

@Severian I think the only notable game was earth worm Jim. Or, as that the atari vcs? I can't remember.

It's a product that I would like to have seen come out but its clear no real work has been done for a couple of years and it's never likely to release. At this point it looks more like the board members were trying to fleece investors to get their own money (loans) paid back to them

The Intellivision Amico is an investment scam and garbage system dude.

For a console that was supposed to be about simpler concepts and a lower price(for the games, is what they'd say, though) the controllers look to be overly complicated and expensive. Even if they weren't any more expensive than a traditional controller of decent quality, good luck convincing the retro crowd that the touch screen is better than buttons. Well, they don't need luck on this as it looks like it will never see release.

I do remember that they had an EarthWorm Jim project made exclusively for this. Maybe it can be refitted as an EarthWorm Jim game with a standard control scheme, on platforms we all own.

I never saw the point of this product to begin with. Even if it released, it would have sold poorly (if at all).

@YoshiAngemon only thing thye have shown is 2 screens of him walking to the other screen in how many years lol

It’s a shame since Intellivision has been in business since they were sold off from Mattel and for them to end up like this stings.

@Spider-Kev To say 'Any' is silly. I've backed over fifty on KS and only had a problem with one. Backing new consoles is a different thing entirely.

This just tells me Earthworm Jim 4 is being ported.

I. Am. Ready.

@Spider-Kev I wouldn't say never, but not with dubios people like Tommy.

This is even worse than Atari somehow….

@Paraka They never even started the game, there's nothing to port.

@rockodoodle The Atari VCS has much better specs and actually came out. As jaded as I felt about that project this is just a huge scam. Helped along by the journalistic integrity of NL for asking no questions, wanting no proof and allowing a CEO to slander critics in a trusted space like Nintendo life. It is just plain illegal practices.

I also don't trust anything this site does anymore as they hide advertising as articles. Damien did the same thing with the polymega but at least that is real.

Hopefully Blaze will step in and pick up Earthworm Jim 4 for the Evercade handheld and Vs home console since we have the Interplay collections.

@Fugazi8 - Not entirely true. They probably have been developing some sort of structure since its tease early on.

Would be folly to just let it die outright. Especially when many highlight that as one of the go-to examples to be excited for the console.

Why was my comment deleted?
People upset I said their money was stolen?

OOF!
Well, now Amico is just the friends we made along the way, I guess.

This thing and the POS from "atari" were doomed from day one. Hey INTV and "Atari" why don't you look at how EVERCADE slid in under the radar and actually has a killer system that plays an insanely awesome amount of games, and they aren't going to have to tell investors sorry "we suck at what we do" as they go out of business AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN.

Nothing of value was lost. I don't understand why NintendoLife promoted this so hard, I hope you got compensated enough for it because it certainly wasn't worth it.

To quote myself when this was announced: "this has FAILURE written all over itself"

Nintendolife was inexplicably shilling for these scammers before. What went wrong?

Y'know what this means... these things are going to be super rare in the future.

@bimmy-lee Welp, there ya have it. Development hell at its finest.

@Damo I never said it had to be money, maybe you're just trying to get on the ins with hardware manufacturers by playing super soft. Maybe you thought it would be good for the site and given how Tommy is so self conscious of criticism didn't want to rub him the wrong way. I know how Tommy works giving the inside story and everyone else is on the outside (according to him). Honestly I don't think they are nice enough to pay anyone, they have been using influencers for the same thing and getting them to invest.

@GrailUK the Spectrum Next is definitely legit - they've released several batches of hardware (I've even played on one at Blackpool Replay) I don't know if there is current stock available, but they are definitely for real

@NintendoByNature - Are you gonna get one? Should I??? If you do, save the box, if they don’t make any, they’ll be super rare someday.

@bimmy-lee first off, I won't disclose IF I'm getting one, in fear of someone tryna steal it. However, yes. Go buy it. Be apart of historeeee!! This opportunity only comes around once every 1.3 years..

As a lifelong gamer who fondly remembers a time when gaming wasn’t the multi billion dollar bull in the China shop it is today, I was actually looking forward to Amico as a third pillar console for my daughter and me. I was genuinely intrigued by the controller, and I actually liked the idea of a library that only had family friendly games.

I think that, most of all, I’d just really like to see the little guy succeed for once. Gaming is spiraling out of control, in my opinion, and I’m actually losing interest. I was combing the rack of the PS5, and I was astonished to see that most of the available games are also on PS4! For the first time ever, there is nothing about the new generation that excites me, save for Elden Ring which...I CAN GET ON MY PS4!

Aside from Earthworm Jim the game library for this looked like horrendous shovelware garbage.

@BanjoPickles Agree. Outside of just a couple niche titles there's still absolutely no reason to own any of the "next gen" consoles.

DOA What would you expect from a crowd funding that tells you the device was too little too late...

As a child of the 80’s, I wanted to like this, but I couldn’t get past Tommy. He gave off the vibe of a person who’d tell you anything you wanted to here. Maybe that’s me judging, sorry.

Then, I saw some of the games, and it just was working for me either. It looked a lot like shovelware for the PC that was the 50 Games in 1!

I feel for the people who pre-ordered.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAH! Let this sad pathetic project fail!

@Damo Sir, please. Don't drag yourself into a comment war, it'll only make you look worse off.

@Damo Arguing over specifics like this is not helping your case.

@Damo You're not wrong, but the line between that and giving yourself a black eye is incredibly thin.

Hopefully their supporters will get refunded. This is why I refuse to fund Kickstarters.

@Pikachew3 nothing saying it won't come to eshops or steam

@GiantEnemyCrab They're reporting the news on it, nothing more. At least by blabbing about it, any backers have a better chance of reclaiming their funds.

@NintendoByNature I think there was an Ecco game too.

@Tempestryke ah gotcha. So not too much there. I would've love to get my hands on earth worm Jim though.

@Damo Advertising is delivering a company's message as they intended, no journalism involved. That is not always about money. If you look at word of mouth advertising you can see that clearly. Being a fan and being a journalist are different, so if you like something you still have to look into all the facts. The work speaks for itself, and it's not even about me or anyone else not liking it, it's just the job you did to help your readers find the truth, not delivering corporate messages for companies you like.

Really this is my hot take on it. If you don't want to see it the way we see it and own what that interview with Tommy was I don't know what to tell you. You obviously aren't too worried about it if you can't even say, "we all knew there were issues and I should have asked real questions about the product". And if your employer is cool with that than I'm not cool with NL anymore, simple as that. I'm not going to hang out here and troll you, I got fired up by this article, had my say and am moving on.

"hey guys, so online gaming bad, buy 250 dollar famiclone plug and play with 3 games, thx"

It's just a $250 dollar plug and play with games targeted at 3 year olds. No adult will buy this. No child will have the money to buy this. You can get a Switch Lite and an indie game for less than that price! And the Switch also has free games! You can get a 3DS off of eBay for way cheaper than that, with a bunch of games! You can go on Amazon and buy a Tiger electronic game and that'd be more fun than this. Who would ever buy this? What were they thinking?

@Tempestryke I hope so, from what we saw, it looked good!

@NintendoByNature Me too

@Pikachew3 I hope so. Would be nice.