Intellivision

History and development

The Intellivision was developed at Mattel in Hawthorne, California along with their Mattel Electronics line of handheld electronic games. Mattel Electronics becoming a subsidiary in 1981. The Intellivision was test marketed in Fresno, California, in 1979 with a total of four games available. It was released nationwide in 1980 with a price tag of US$299, a pack-in game: Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack and a library of ten cartridges.

Mattel began investigating a home video game system in 1977. It was to have rich graphics and long lasting gameplay to distinguish itself from its competitors. Mattel identified a newly designed chipset from National Semiconductor and negotiated better pricing for a simpler design. Their consultant, APh Technological Consulting, suggested a General Instrument chipset, listed as the Gimini programmable set in the GI 1977 catalog. The GI chipset lacked reprogrammable graphics and Mattel worked with GI to implement changes. GI published an updated chipset in their 1978 catalog. After initially choosing National in August 1977, Mattel waited for two months before ultimately going with the proposed GI chipset in the fall of 1977. A team at Mattel, headed by David Chandler began engineering the hardware. In 1978, David Rolfe of APh developed the executive control software and with a group of Caltech summer student hires, programmed the first games. Graphics were designed by artists at Mattel that included Dave James.

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 able 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 in terms of furthering the 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:

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, 1983 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. The Intellivision II was initially released without a pack-in game but was later packaged with BurgerTime in the United States and Lock'N'Chase in Canada.

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.

Intellivision III

Mattel planned to release the Intellivision III, a more powerful console with a price above $200, for Christmas 1983. The company canceled the console after the ColecoVision beat the Atari 5200 in the market for higher-performance consoles, and after home computers became as inexpensive as game consoles.

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 significant round of new 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.

Former Mattel Electronics Senior Vice President of Marketing, Terrence Valeski, understood that although losses were huge, the demand for video games increased in 1983. Valeski found investors and purchased the rights to Intellivision, the games, and inventory from Mattel. A new company, Intellivision Inc, was formed and by the end of 1984 Valeski bought out the other investors and changed the name to INTV Corp.. They continued to supply the large toy stores and sold games through direct mail order. At first they sold the existing inventory of games and Intellivision II systems. When the inventory of games sold out they produced more, but without the Mattel name or unnecessary licenses on the printed materials. To lower costs, the boxes, instructions, and overlays were produced at lower quality compared to Mattel. In 1985 INTV Corp. introduced the INTV System III, also branded as the Intellivision Super Pro System, using the same design as the original Intellivision model but in black and silver. Also in 1985 INTV Corp. introduced two new games that were completed at Mattel but not released. They were Thunder Castle and World Championship Baseball. With their early success INTV Corp. decided to produce new games and in 1986 introduced Super Pro Football, an update of Mattel NFL Football. INTV Corp. continued a relationship that Mattel had with Data East and produced all new titles such as Commando in 1987. They also got into producing next generation games with the production of Monster Truck Rally for Nintendo in 1991.

In 1989 INTV Corp and World Book Encyclopedia entered into an agreement to manufacture an educational video game system called Tutorvision. It was a modified Intellivision and 14 titles were programmed. That resulted in both companies suing each other and the Tutorvison was never released. INTV Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection in 1990 and closed in 1991. The Intellivision was discontinued in 1990 but INTV Corp. did produce 21 new Intellivision cartridges bringing the Intellivision library to a total of 125 cartridges.

Re-releases

Intellivision games became readily available again when Keith Robinson and Stephen Roney, both former Intellivision programmers at Mattel, obtained exclusive rights to the Intellivision and games in 1997. Their company, Intellivision Productions, released Intellivision Lives! and Intellivision Rocks, in 1999 and 2001. These compilation CDs play the original game code through emulators for MS-DOS, Windows, and Macintosh computers. They included some never before released games such as King of the Mountain, Takeover, Robot Rubble, League of Light and others. Some games could not be included due to licensing, others simply used different titles to avoid trademarked names. The CDs are also a resource for development history, box art, hidden features, programmer biographies, video interviews, and original commercials.

In 2003, Crave Entertainment released a PlayStation 2 version of Intellivision Lives! and then Xbox and GameCube versions in 2004. In 2010 Virtual Play Games released Intellivision Lives! for the Nintendo DS including one never before released game, Blow Out. In 2008 Intellivision Lives! became available for purchase as a download 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 became available through the GameTap subscription gaming service in 2005.

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. Their Direct2Drive digital store has Windows compatible Intellivision compilations available for download purchase.

Reviews and game guides

Ken Uston published Ken Uston's Guide to Buying and Beating the Home Video Games in 1982 as a guide to potential buyers of console systems/cartridges, as well as a brief strategy guide to numerous cartridge games then in existence. He described Intellivision as "the most mechanically reliable of the systems… The controller (used during "many hours of experimentation") worked with perfect consistency. The unit never had overheating problems, nor were loose wires or other connections encountered." However, Uston rated the controls and control system as "below average" and the worst of the consoles he tested (including Atari 2600, Magnavox Odyssey², Astrovision, and Fairchild Channel F).

Jeff Rovin lists Intellivision as one of the seven major suppliers of videogames in 1982, and mentions it as "the unchallenged king of graphics", however stating that the controllers can be "difficult to operate", the fact that if a controller breaks the entire unit must be shipped off for repairs (since they did not detach at first), and that the overlays "are sometimes so stubborn as to tempt one's patience" .

A 1996 article in Next Generation said the Intellivision "had greater graphics power than the dominant Atari 2600. It was slower than the 2600 and had less software available, but it was known for its superior sports titles."

Innovations

Technical specifications

Game controller

The Intellivision controller features:

The controller was ranked the fourth worst video game controller by IGN editor Craig Harris.