Was Astrosmash a pack-in game?

[mr_me]

I read this on the internet, so it must be true. But I haven't seen any evidence like a photo of a master component box with a sticker saying Astrosmash cartridge inside. I do remember that Astrosmash was free with the purchase of an Intellivision 1, but I'm not sure if if was a pack-in or a free offer and LV Poker & Blackjack being the pack-in. If anyone can post a picture of Astrosmash as a pack-in with the master component, please do.

[BassGuitari]

It wasn't at first, but I believe Astrosmash became a pack-in arount the time--or just before--the Intellivision II came out, which was packed with Burgertime. I'm not 100% though; someone feel free to correct me.

On a sort of related note, my Sylvania/GTE box advertised NFL Football as the pack-in, but has a sticker on it that says "Includes Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack."

[VectorGamer]

I'm sure someone will have a definitive answer, so let me chew up AtariAge storage space by saying that when a neighbor kid got his INTV for Xmas he had Astrosmash as well.

[BydoEmpire]

I don't remember ever seeing it as a pack-in, but of course I didn't see every bundle that came out. My memory and 50c might buy you a soda...

[+DZ-Jay]

The BSR page says it was:

The popularity of Astrosmash was such that late in 1982 it replaced Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack as the cartridge shipped with the Intellivision Master Component. By June 1983, the last date for which figures are available, 984,900 copies of Astrosmash had been shipped, making it the most widely distributed cartridge by any of the Blue Sky Rangers (trailing only the APh produced Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack and Major League Baseball cartridges). John Sohl was rewarded with a plaque from Mattel and a better offer from Activision, which he took (after finishing B-17 Bomber).

* emphasis mine.

Edited April 6, 2016 by DZ-Jay

[Spadafermo51]

Box with Astrosmash free

[mr_me]

Box with Astrosmash free

Yes thanks, this is what I remember, although the packaging in Canada was different. I remember we got our Intellivision either early-mid 1981 or early-mid 1982 and then a few months later there was a price drop and a free Astrosmash offer with LV Poker & BJ still a pack-in. I remember being more upset about the price drop than missing the free Astrosmash.

 

Now I just need to see a photo of a Master Component box that says Astrosmash cartridge inside.

[mr_me]

Well I tried finding a photo of a box with Astrosmash as a pack-in but couldn't. I found LV Poker & BlackJack as pack-ins for original Mattel Intellivision and the Sylvania/Sears/Tandyvisions in the US and Canada. The Intellivision II had either no pack-in or Burgertime and in Canada Lock'n'chase. In European boxes, I've seen Armor Battle, Triple Action, Soccer, Space Armada, and one box that had both Soccer and Lock'n'chase inside. And I've seen Digiplay in Brasil boxes with Triple Action or Pitfall.

 

There's lots of pictures of boxes in Steve Jones' post http://atariage.com/forums/topic/191710-2012-intellivision-collection-pic-thread/?p=2526784. Here are some more I stole from google searches.

 

The original US box. My understanding is that Mattel decided to not include NFL Football at the last minute for legal reasons. I haven't seen one without the sticker. There's a few variations of this box; one with LV Poker & Blackjack on the TV and then without the keyboard component.

 

An updated US box with and without the free Astrosmash by mail offer. Both have LV Poker & Blackjack as pack-ins

 

Intellivision II with I believe no-packin and a couple with Burgertime. Not sure which ones are earlier/later The photos are poor quality but I think it says "free Burgertime cartridge included"

Edited April 13, 2016 by mr_me

[mr_me]

The Canadian boxes. The original boxes with LV Poker & Blackjack and Intellivision II with Lock'N'Chase. There's probably Intellivision IIs with no pack-ins. And some US boxes were likely sold in Canada.

 

 

edit:

And I'm pretty sure I've seen boxes with the Astrosmash offer sticker back in 1981 or 1982. Was there any other Canadian 2609 model packaging?

Edited April 13, 2016 by mr_me

[+save2600]

Never saw Astrosmash as a literal pack-in either BITD. Looks like it was a special promo offered up for a limited time, that you had to send away for in some regions? FWIW, wasn't aware of that promo around here and never saw a box with that sticker on it in all my travels and years in the Midwest collecting this stuff.

[mr_me]

UK and/or Australia with no-pack-in, I'm guessing.

 

Soccer and Lock'N'Chase

 

And then a mystery pack-in.

 

South Africa with Armour Battle.

 

France and Italy with a free Cartridge; maybe the customer gets to choose.

 

Not sure where but one with Space Armada.

 

Digiplay in Brasil with Triple Action and Intellivision II with Pitfall

[+intellivotion]

 

(...) Italy with a free Cartridge; maybe the customer gets to choose.

7d5f12ac-ad57-11e5-8fd9-523062cdec76.jpg

 

As far as I know in Italy LV Poker & Blackjack was the pack-in game in the beginning.

Later we had a surprise game, and we couldn't choose

For a short period, a surprise game plus Soccer and Tennis

[mr_me]

And from Germany; the photo with the pack in sticker came from one of the guys here on Atariage and it had Triple Action as the pack-in.

 

 

edit:

There's also a Japanese box; its one of my favourites. But I have no idea what it comes with; I don't read Japanese.

All those European boxes with no labels about a pack-in. Anyone know if it came with a game; Intellivotion mentioned LV Poker & Blackjack, or would that be a different box?

Edited April 15, 2016 by mr_me

[+intellivotion]

Another pic for this interesting gallery, directly from eBay: Intellivision with Soccer from Germany

 

 

 

[mr_me]

Thanks. Strange that we can find so many photos of different Intellivision pack-ins but not one Astrosmash pack-in.

[HunterZero]

To make things complicated - My Australian Intellivision box does not mention a pack-in game, yet it came with Star Strike. I won my Intellivision as a prize in a completition though, so it's possible that the game was inserted into the console box by the competition organisers. I don't remember the outer box being sealed with tape or wrap.

 

There's a chance pack-in games were inserted at retail and are not marked on the box.

 

- James

Edited April 26, 2016 by HunterZero

[mr_me]

My Canadian 2609 came in a box glued closed. You have to damage it to open it. I'm guessing US boxes were the same. Looks like the rest of the world got boxes that can open/close. I guess that explains the variety of packins outside Canada/US.

[mr_me]

Major League Baseball was a pack-in; but when? This photo was previously posted by cmart604. Based on the serial number its the earliest console box I've seen.

 

The photo suggests Baseball was released when Football wasn't. But Intellivisionlives puts the release date of Football a few days before Baseball in 1980 ( http://intellivisionlives.com/credits.php). Perhaps its a 1979 test market package. But again Intellivisionlives lists only Backgammon, Armor Battle, Poker & BJ, and Math Fun as test market games ( http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/people/askhal/askhal.html#A2). It would have been surprising not to include a sports game in the test market; maybe they felt there was no need to test a sure thing like Intellivision Baseball. Baseball, Basketball, and Football were all programmed by the end of summer 1978.

Edited August 15, 2016 by mr_me

[Walter Ives]

On 8/15/2016 at 6:22 AM, mr_me said:

Major League Baseball was a pack-in; but when? This photo was previously posted by cmart604. Based on the serial number its the earliest console box I've seen.

 

The photo suggests Baseball was released when Football wasn't. But Intellivisionlives puts the release date of Football a few days before Baseball in 1980 ( http://intellivisionlives.com/credits.php). Perhaps its a 1979 test market package. But again Intellivisionlives lists only Backgammon, Armor Battle, Poker & BJ, and Math Fun as test market games ( http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/people/askhal/askhal.html#A2). It would have been surprising not to include a sports game in the test market; maybe they felt there was no need to test a sure thing like Intellivision Baseball. Baseball, Basketball, and Football were all programmed by the end of summer 1978.

Edited August 15, 2016 by mr_me

The programming of the first batch of eight games—Armor Battle, Backgammon, Baseball, Basketball, Battlestar Galactica, Blackjack and Poker, Football and Math Fun—was indeed completed in 1978. However, as there were no functional chipsets and only a single emulator, the games couldn't be adequately play-tested, so they really weren't ready to be released into production. Indeed, one couldn't even be certain that the games would run at all on the actual chip sets. As a result Krakauer, exercising as always his firm grip on the pocketbook, deferred authorizing the game ROMs into production. Except for one: at least one game was needed to be available in ROM form pretty early. Football, planned to be the flagship application, was the obvious choice, but it had to be rewritten and so was the last game of the first batch to be completed. Baseball, which was turning out to be the killer ap for the system, was chosen instead. The rest of the games waited in limbo. T-cards were designed so these other games could be tested and demonstrated once working Master Components became available.

The System RAM was the last chip to get working—APh built emulators for that chip so the Intellivision could be demonstrated at the January 1979 Winter CES and February Toy Fair. Luckily, the Baseball cartridge happened to work just fine. The rest of the games, plus preliminary versions of Checkers and Roulette, static screens for Auto Racing and Craps and mock-up animations for Exercise and French were shown in T-card form. The Battlestar Galactica license deal wasn't coming together, so the game's title screen was changed to Space Battle at the very last minute.

The first working full Master Component chip sets began dribbling out of GI in January 1979. Sylvania assembled the units in small batches of 25 to 50. These first batches were used for marketing, development, FCC emissions testing and game testing. There was quite a bit of concern about heat and whether the Master Component would have to be redesigned to accommodate a fan.

At the rate things were going, I'd put the assembly date of Serial No. 000111 as sometime in April. In that era nominal ROM turnaround was six weeks. That's ROM turnaround only; cartridge assembly took additional time. Since GI was having so much difficulty with the Master Component chip set, there wasn't a big rush to commit the games to production. That's why the Football cartridges weren't available for inclusion with the earliest Master Components. During this time tweaks were made to Math Fun.

Summing up, it's highly unlikely that Serial No. 000111 was ever "released for retail sale." How did it escape? Marketing regularly gave early product to focus groups to take home in order to get feedback. Units were sent around the country as demonstrators for promotional events. It may have been given to a potential large-volume customer or taken home by a Mattel executive.

One could argue that no Intellivision product was "first released for retail sale" until the day stuff was loaded onto a rental truck by Chandler's crew for a five-hour drive to Fresno. Or, seeing as how Mattel personnel maintained control the inventory through the first day of sales and personally did demonstrations for customers, maybe they shouldn't be considered "released" until the first retail customer actually bought one.

WJI

[Walter Ives]

On 8/15/2016 at 6:22 AM, mr_me said:

It would have been surprising not to include a sports game in the test market; maybe they felt there was no need to test a sure thing like Intellivision Baseball.

Uh-huh. One could even go so far as to say it would have been preposterous for Mattel to not include Baseball in the Fresno test market. When you have eliminated all which is preposterous then whatever remains, however much it deviates from the documentary fragments that have survived, must be the truth.

WJI