The gaming industry has been rife with fierce competition for decades, from Nintendo vs. Sega to PlayStation vs. Xbox, with the market leaders going head-to-head in what gamers call the “console wars.”
But one of the first console wars has finally come to an end, after nearly 45 years of both companies' gaming systems making waves. Announced The company announced that it would acquire the Intellivision brand and “certain games” from Intellivision Entertainment LLC.
“After 45 years, the combination of Atari and Intellivision marks the end of the longest console war in history,” Mike Mika, studio head of Atari-owned Digital Eclipse Game Studios, said in a statement.
It's unclear what Atari has planned for the Intellivision brand, but the first project is Atari.com.
Atari vs. Intellivision Console Wars
The Intellivision gaming console was released by Mattel Electronics in 1979 and posed the first serious threat to the Atari 2600, the most popular gaming console at the time.
Mattel attacked Atari in a way that no other competitor had done before. commercial There were also ads featuring author George Plimpton, who compared the two consoles and touted the Intellivision's superior graphics and sound over the Atari console.
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Mattel sold out of the Intellivision console within a year. By 1990, approximately 5 million Intellivision consoles had been sold.
Ultimately, however, both Atari and Intellivision lost their top positions in the video game console market. Nevertheless, the companies continued to leverage their intellectual property and license video games to companies such as Nintendo and Sony.
The Future of Intellivision
Atari's announcement didn't offer many details about what it plans to do with the Intellivision brand, but nostalgia runs strong in the gaming world, so it's likely that Atari plans to leverage the Intellivision game library. One interesting aspect of Atari's announcement is that it did not acquire Intellivision Entertainment LLC's Amico brand of game consoles.
The Amico console was announced in 2018 after video game music composer Tommy Tallarico purchased a stake in Intellivision and the company announced plans to relaunch the Intellivision console. Eventually renamed Amico, the console was promoted as a simple gaming console targeted at non-gamers and families.
Though it had a target release date of 2020, Amico experienced various delays, and as of 2024, Amico still has not been released, and Atari apparently had no interest in acquiring it.
Atari announced that Intellivision Entertainment LLC will be rebranded and continue to develop the Amico game console. In fact, Atari also revealed that as part of the deal, Amico will receive a license to distribute new Intellivision games for the Amico console.
In the second half of 2023 report The company then known as Intellivision was having financial difficulties producing Amico units and was seeking capital, and the sale of the Intellivision brand to Atari may have been a way to raise capital for Amico.
So, based on all this, we can assume that Atari is planning on releasing new games under its newly acquired Intellivision brand. and The Amico console is still alive for now.
