Breaking news: Intellivision flashback coming to retail

[Bill Loguidice]

I'm with you, Flojomojo. Even Sega, who is better than most at reissuing their back catalog, too often relies on Sega Genesis stuff when they have a rich arcade catalog to mine. When they do go to the arcade back catalog, like with Zaxxon, it's often only as an unlockable, which frustrates me even more.

[+Gemintronic]

 

I agree that it would be wonderful to have a master resource for who owns what. That would be a truly massive undertaking, obviously, but certainly something that I think would not only be helpful for corporate entities, but also homebrewers.

 

 

^^ this.

 

Right now there is a culture of enforced silence and sidestepping when it comes to these issues. It would be infinitely more healthy to promote active communication between rights holders and those developers who want to preserve (and even enhance!) our gaming legacy.

[+wongojack]

I'd like to see one of our talented mod-people insert a Rasberry-Pi (or one of the faster mini-computers), loaded up with an intellivision emulator, inside the new Intv Flashback.

 

I own original hardware and use it all the time, but I want to chime in with my experience on this point. This idea about RasPi has been done and so has FPGA for various systems. It is so much work right now to add a cart slot & controller interface and for what? - Essentially you are just emulating the hardware. I've played around with these options and each time, I just fall back to emulation on an actual PC instead. What is the difference between hooking a RasPi or FPGA system to my TV and hooking up a computer. Either way it is an emulator of some sort with adapted controls and IO.

 

When I say "it is so much work to add a cart slot." I realize it can be done and that people are smart, but it isn't commercially viable. You might as well buy one of the modded systems that were linked earlier in the thread because they will be cheaper than any custom FPGA/RasPi device. And then there is the fact that emulators have been developed on more "versatile" platforms (PC etc) for years. They are constantly improving and will continue to receive more updates while the RasPi or (insert your) FPGA device will probably only be supported and worked on for a short window.

 

Of course my whole point would be false if they would just do a RetroN thing for pre-Nes systems that would sell in that $50-$70 range. Which it seems they won't.

 

Coming back to the Flashbacks and collections. I like them for what they are. A relatively cheap way to interact with a variation of the games I love. The updated controllers are almost worth the price by themselves for me. However, emulating the ROMs on a stable platform will always trump expensive options of the almost real hardware variety.

[+Lathe26]

Regarding the RetroN for pre-NES consoles, I directly asked them this question at last years SRGE. Short answer is that they looked into it but it was not commercially viable (i.e. wouldn't sell enough to justify the costs).

[mdoerty]

 

Well, most of those Activision did themselves, and they also licensed a dedicated Activision TV game and usage on an earlier Flashback. In most of those cases it was JUST Activision stuff. If I remember correctly, the Telegames release was just the stuff they already owned from the original license transfer agreement and I have a feeling they wouldn't be able to do it again. Frankly, I think Activision is just too big and otherwise focused at this point to bother with the relatively small income that involving themselves with stuff like this would bring.

 

I disagree about the limiting factor thing. I think it's a loss on all but the Sega stuff. Activision was obviously definitive and historically important on the Atari 2600, and had some solid releases on the Intellivision, and, to a lesser degree, the ColecoVision. Still, even though there is no Activision stuff on any of these, what is there is solid. It also looks like the Imagic stuff has been decoupled from Activision, so there's that.

 

I think we are probably mostly in agreement here.

 

The "limiting factor" comment was mostly a clumsy way of saying that Activision (and the companies whose IPs it controls) made up a larger share of the Intellivision and Colecovision than the Atari 2600 and Sega Genesis. That's what happens when you try to type on an iPad.

[wolfy62]

I am looking forward to it, however it is created! Should be super.

[Uzumaki]

Mattel created 2 AD&D games for Intellivision under license from TSR. Those 2 games have been reissued in recent compilations under different names to avoid copyright or licensing issues like Nintendo DS (named something like minotaur and cloudy mountains.

 

Are those 2 games on the new Intellivision system under alternate names? Or do I need to keep my Nintendo DS game a while longer?

[Bill Loguidice]

Mattel created 2 AD&D games for Intellivision under license from TSR. Those 2 games have been reissued in recent compilations under different names to avoid copyright or licensing issues like Nintendo DS (named something like minotaur and cloudy mountains.

 

Are those 2 games on the new Intellivision system under alternate names? Or do I need to keep my Nintendo DS game a while longer?

 

I guess since the Intellivision Flashback was at E3, I'm not violating any confidentiality by saying that yes, those two games are on there by one of their alternate names.

[PacManPlus]

 

I guess since the Intellivision Flashback was at E3, I'm not violating any confidentiality by saying that yes, those two games are on there by one of their alternate names.

 

That alone is worth the purchase for me.

[TrickyMoon]

 

That alone is worth the purchase for me.

ditto... that's awesome news.

[StephenJ]

"...those two games are on there by one of their alternate names..."

GREAT!

 

Thanks Bill

[Atariboy]

Sorry to give false hope with my clumsy statement, but the Intellivision Flashback has no third party stuff, just Mattel and INTV titles. The ColecoVision Flashback is the one with a wide range of third party stuff on it (no pure Activision stuff though, of course).

Did they at least secure some of the 1st party stuff that usually doesn't appear like Mattel's Burgertime port?

[Flojomojo]

INTV Burgertime and Diner = instabuy

[+evg2000]

There are some pics up on Facebook from E3, here is one with a side by side comparison of the controllers:

[Uzumaki]

So the new controller has flat metallic disc rather than polished shiny disc? If it's the same shape and style physically, one can probably swap the disc just for the shiny-ness

[boxpressed]

Straightened cords are for real, then. Nice.

[daldude]

Cool, it looks like the controllers are the same exact size as the original ones, this means the overlays that come with it will wok on a real Intellivision and be worth the price of the flashback just to get the overlays if one has misplaced their originals. If they are unplug able I wonder if they will work on a Sears Super Video Arcade? If they are the same exact size how did they do that since Mattel no longer makes the controllers and probably got rid of the original moulds or blue prints for the controllers. Maybe INTV had a big bunch of controllers in a wheelhouse somewhere?

Any video footage of actual game play of the flash back from the E3?

Edited June 14, 2014 by daldude

[Intellfan]

Cool, it looks like the controllers are the same exact size as the original ones, this means the overlays that come with it will wok on a real Intellivision and be worth the price of the flashback just to get the overlays if one has misplaced their originals. If they are unplug able I wonder if they will work on a Sears Super Video Arcade? If they are the same exact size how did they do that since Mattel no longer makes the controllers and probably got rid of the original moulds or blue prints for the controllers. Mayne INTV had a big bunch of controllers in a wheelhouse somewhere?

Any video footage of actual game play of the flash back from the E3?

I do believe they will work on sears or a intell 2 that is why i bought a sears that is modded with video output I should be set for anther 30 years lol

[+JasonlikesINTV]

I'm looking forward to the custom overlays that come with the system.

[Bill Loguidice]

Did they at least secure some of the 1st party stuff that usually doesn't appear like Mattel's Burgertime port?

 

There are a few titles I don't recall seeing elsewhere, but no, no BurgerTime or Diner. The last BurgerTime game I recall seeing released was World Tour by MonkeyPaw Games from a few years back, so licenses must be available for it (at a cost). Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, it looks like a company called G-Mode has a lot of the Data East properties now, including Lock'n'Chase. Since I don't see any Data East stuff on the Intellivision Flashback list, I can only assume they didn't want to play ball. With that said, there is (top of my head, could be more) one Data East game they own the rights to on the ColecoVision Flashback, but the rights could be different in that case (it seems the ColecoVision Flashback side has a bit more flexibility in what it has on it; since I'm not privvy to the licensing discussions, I can't offer any insight).

[Flojomojo]

Lock-n-Chase and Burning Rubber (original Japanese name for Bump-n-Jump) came out on PSN Minis a few years ago, so they're still in circulation, but as Bill says, probably at a price.

[Bill Loguidice]

Lock-n-Chase and Burning Rubber (original Japanese name for Bump-n-Jump) came out on PSN Minis a few years ago, so they're still in circulation, but as Bill says, probably at a price.

 

I don't recall seeing the former, but I actually did pick up the latter for my Vita. It's a good emulation, though it doesn't take full advantage of the Vita's capabilities obviously. I wonder if the fact that G-Mode is a Japanese company if that hurts negotiations for a primarily US product?

[Flojomojo]

Lock-n-Chase isn't as good, it has redrawn, heavily stylized graphics.

[Atariboy]

The three Data East PSP Minis (They also did Express Raider) are sadly now delisted that G1M2 released on PSN. Surprised that Burgertime never popped up since G1M2 did all four of these early 80's classics on Data East Arcade Classics on the Wii slightly earlier and they were also the developer for the Minis.

 

Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, it looks like a company called G-Mode has a lot of the Data East properties now, including Lock'n'Chase.

They do, their business is licensing these properties out to others like Majesco (I believe they were the publisher of Data East Arcade Classics on the Wii and probably those Minis as well) or MonkeyPaw with their Burgertime reboot.

 

So licensing opportunities exist.

Edited June 15, 2014 by Atariboy

[SoulBlazer]

I've heard Keith say in a recent podcast that same company had the rights to the Data East games, so that's right. I can only assume they wouldn't licence the games save for a crazy amount of money.