I probably made some kind of Intellivision related threads here years ago but this will be a little different, focusing more on trivia and other related stuff. Hopefully other will find this stuff interesting too.
Some of you might not have played this console so here's a quick bit of info:
After the success of their handheld sports games in the late '70s, toy giant Mattel was preparing the release their first game console. The Intellivision was test marketed in California in 1979, and given a full North American release in 1980. It ended up in second place in the first major console war behind Atari but well ahead of the Odyssey2 and Bally Professional Arcade.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...ellivision.jpg
* In terms of hardware, it can claim a few firsts: It was the first console to have a 16-bit processor.
* As far as I can tell, it introduced the directional pad(Nintendo's cross-shaped d-pad originated on Game & Watch a couple years later) and the numeric keypad/overlay type controller.
* It was the first console to have downloadable games. Its PlayCable service started in 1981. Ralph Baer had thought of the idea many years earlier for the original Odyssey but the cable companies weren't interested at the time.
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* On the marketing front, it began the trend of bashing the competition in ads, and of celebrity endorsements. Commercials with George Plimpton made comparisons with similar games on the Atari VCS.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...limpton_ad.jpg
* It introduced the first officially licensed sports video games in 1980. Major League Baseball came first(it also became the best selling game on the system). It was followed by NHL, NFL, NASL, PGA and NBA games.
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* It had the first console strategy/simulation game, Don Daglow's Utopia in 1981. It's an ancestor to games like Civilization and Sim City.
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* It had the first true, turn-based console RPG: Tom Loughry's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: The Treasure of Tarmin in 1982. This was amazing at the time with its 3d dungeons.
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The Quest for the Rings was released the previous year on Odyssey2 but it was more of an action/RPG.
* Had it been released, the 1979 game Hard Hat could have been significant in the evolution of the platform genre. It might have been the first game where you could make a character climb up and down and fall as opposed to the usually credited [b]Space Panic/b] from Universal(1980).
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/.../HardHat_2.png
* It's common practice today for movie licensed games to be in development at the same time as the movies themselves. I'm pretty sure 1982's TRON Deadly Discs was the first game to do this. This also happens to be one of my favourite games of all time so I'm curious what happened to its main designer, Steve Sents. Anyone know?
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/.../tron%20dd.GIF
* The Intellivision had a relatively large number of female development staff(usually on graphics but some on design). There isn't enough information on every developer to say for sure but the percentage seems higher to me than any other first-party from the '80s. Connie Goldman, Julie Hoshizaki, Monique Lujan-Bakerink, Ji Wen Tsao, Peggi Decarli, Minchau Tran, Karen Nugent, Donna Fisher were all involved in making InTV games for Mattel.
* Although there were hundreds of home computer and arcade games released in 1985, the InTV was the only console still in production in North America until the NES launched.
* Various companies related to the Intellivision are still around today:
David Warhol founded Realtime Associates in 1986 which employed several ex-Mattel development staff. Most of their games over the years have been licensed junk, unfortunately. They did port Maniac Mansion to the NES and Loom to TurboGrafx CD. They also developed a third of the titles for the Sega Pico, and also made the Saturn platform series Bug!. Most recently they returned to their roots with the compilation Intellivision Lives! for last gen's consoles.
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http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/.../bug%20box.jpg
http://www.rtassoc.com/pastprojects.html
Quicksilver Software(founded by Bill Fisher, Steve Roney, and Mike Breen) developed the Castles series for Interplay, Master of Orion III, and other strategy games. They also revisited their roots in 2003 with the PC compilation, Intellivision Rocks.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...stles%20ii.jpg
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http://www.quicksilver.com/games.php
Don Daglow was a pioneer in mainframe gaming at the beginning of the 1970s, creating the first video baseball game, and one of the earliest RPGs, Dungeon. After leaving the Intellivision scene, he worked at EA and Broderbund.
Afterwards, he founded Stormfront Studios which co-developed 1991's Neverwinter Nights with SSI for AOL. This was a big moment for online gaming. From what I gather it was the first graphical MMORPG. And if you think modern MMORPGs are expensive, this one initially cost $6 US per hour to play.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...erwinter91.gif
More recently they made games like Bloodwake(Xbox) and Demon Stone(Xbox/PC/PS2).
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http://www.the-nextlevel.com/hosted/...on%20stone.jpg
http://www.stormfront.com/
APh Technology Consultants, the developer Mattel contracted to make the InTV's hardware, as well as a lot of the first-party games, is still around doing computer related stuff.
Of course, Mattel is still around. Interestingly, their recent kids system, HyperScan calls its games "Intellicards".
http://www.intellivisionlives.com/ has plenty more information on spin off developers and other stuff for those interested.
Any additions, corrections, or comments? I didn't talk about what all the good InTV games are because I think I did that before but discussion of those is certainly welcome too.
