Why Did the Inty Last Until 1990?

[First Spear]

We know that there was Intellivision hardware sold until 1990 (1991?). But who was buying them over the years, where were they located and what were they paying, and why when more powerful systems were on the market?

 

Could this be an Intellivisionaries Investigatory segment?

 

[+save2600]

Not sure why the hardware (perhaps some had the foresight to purchase spares or backups?), but a couple of my friends and I were still purchasing Intellivision games on clearance from places like Toys 'R Us into the early 90's. Remember a time when a friend of mine and I brought home Chip Shot: Super Pro Golf when his mother (aghast) asked why we'd bother spending money on, let alone playing, such an old game.

 

Rationale for us back then, was that it was much cheaper than purchasing a modern game. And what the hell?! Of all the stupid things to get worked up about. Think it was a whopping $7.90. She had actually purchased the system for the family way back in the early 80's, yet she was surprised that we actually still liked and played the system once in a great while? In retrospect, was probably more about why we were playing video game golf in her basement, when we should have moved on to more productive things by that time.

[IMBerzerk]

I remember seeing a Super Pro system in Toy's R Us back in 1989 maybe 1990 when I was in college down in Daytona Beach. I wanted to buy it but after having my C64 sent down and eventually chasing down a new Amiga... I ruled it out. It was dirt cheap... $49.99 IIRC.

 

From that point... I had always wanted one, but the only way to find one was at Garage sales or maybe a Good Will/Salvation Army store. Not until 1998 when eBay was just starting out was when I was able to purchase an Intellivision again.

 

Hindsight... I should have bought that Super Pro back in the day. LOL.

[CharonPDX]

Yup, I kept buying Into games at K B Toys / Toys R Us, then via mail-order direct from INTV Systems until '90-91 when I finally got an NES. The latest-made game I bought back then was Tower of Doom, but IIRC, Buzz Bombers was the last game I actually bought by mail order.

[Intymike]

After all the Atari 2600 was sold until the 1990s too.

[+intellivotion]

I bought a lot with a console and an amazing catalog last Tuesday. The Intellivision actually keeps on being sold right now as well...

 

Apart from jokes, I kept on purchasing Intellivision games until the late '80s. IIRC, my last purchase was Bump'n'Jump (I.I. version), possibly in 1987 or in 1988. I could find them at a very nice toy store in the biggest city of the area where I lived at the time (toy store name: Regalgioca; city: Leghorn; country: Italy). In the end the price was very low: from $5 to $15. That was a big help for a guy with empty pockets

[Jess Ragan]

I believe the plan was for Intv to transition to the Sega Genesis, as the Intellivision was very old and couldn't possibly be relevant in the 1990s. Sega included them in a two page ad celebrating its third party licensees, but Intv never released its Genesis game. Probably for the best, as Curse was a dried up turd of a shooter, and would have had no chance against the many other similar games released for the system.

 

Weirdly, the Genesis did get something linking it to the Intellivision... Intellivision Productions founder Keith Robinson had a game based on his comic, called Normy's Beach Babe-o-Rama, which was designed by former Intellivision programmers.

[mr_me]

INTV did produce "Monster Truck Rally" for NES in 1990, officially licensed by Nintendo. The contract with Nintendo would have made it difficult for INTV to produce new Intellivision cartridges.

 

INTV priced the Super Pro / System III at $69.95 which is the same price Mattel set for the Intellivision II by end of 1983. In 1983 Intellivision became a "budget" system, no longer competing with the newer systems. The market was primarily the 3 million user base established by Mattel. I imagine many INTV Intellivisions were sold as replacements for broken Mattel Inellivisions. At some point the major chain stores stopped selling Intellivision as they would have been under pressure by Nintendo to stop selling competitive product. Somehow Intellivision did continue to sell in other stores into the 1990s.

 

When did the last INTV catalog go out, 1988 or 1989? Anyone have one with a postmark date on it.

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Edited April 1, 2018 by mr_me

[jaybird3rd]

When did the last INTV catalog go out, 1988 or 1989? Anyone have one with a postmark date on it.

According to Intellivision Productions, Christmas 1989 was INTV's last catalog. From their website:

 

Christmas 1988 was bad for INTV Corp. The video game resurgence was in full swing, led by Nintendo. Mail orders were down, and the stores that had still been carrying Intellivision cartridges cut way back or stopped stocking them altogether, freeing up more shelf space for Nintendo games. As cash flow slowed, cartridge production of the completed Monster Truck Rally and Spiker! Super Pro Volleyball was put on hold and over a year went by without a new INTV game or catalog released.

 

In 1989 INTV moved into Nintendo cartridge production, with the first release to be a conversion of Monster Truck Rally, also produced by Realtime Associates and again programmed by Rick [Koenig]. Apparently by using the completed Nintendo version of Monster Truck Rally as proof of INTV Corporation's promising new direction, INTV President Terry Valeski was able to raise enough cash or credit to put the two finished Intellivision games into production, and to mail out a Christmas 1989 catalog (which would turn out to be the last).

 

Thinking that it might hurt the Nintendo Monster Truck Rally's chances if it was seen as based on an Intellivision game, Valeski had the name of the Intellivision version changed to Stadium Mud Buggies. The title screen name was changed, but the graphics remained the same -- the vehicles still look like trucks, not buggies.

 

Ultimately, instead of releasing it themselves, the failing INTV Corporation sold the Nintendo Monster Truck Rally to another distributor to raise cash.

[+LS650]

Answer: because some know quality when they see it!

[Gernot]

what do i know?

 

wasn't infamous consoles sold anytime (apart from the fact that the Inty isn't infamous), i watched some clips aboiut failed consoles and was surprised what and how long certain things have been sold.

was there any reason to have pong consoles after the VCS? but they was still sold.

 

it can be a wide palette of purchasers, from "grandma" who liked tro buy an affordable christmas present to the young dude with little money.

 

a misunderstanding?

when i worked for a recycler (it was a week or two past x-mas) i noticed a lot of unicycles in the trash, i assumed the children liked to get a monowheel and got instead a unicycle as present.

 

well some might have get an unicycle as x-mas present instead of a monowheel (caugh).

 

one can live by small percentages.

just look at all the crap (snake oil in this case) which is being sold, sardine-cans for the power socket to prevent from "evil waves" for €400.- (an empty tin can for €400.- !), but if i can sell this obvious fraud to only a thousendst of residents in europe (740mio) i'm a rich man. subtracting the production costs for an empty tin can round about €2'500'000.- profit. and certainly you will find one idiot beneeth a thousend who will buy it and will be satisfied by how well the sardine-can influences his new life, yes he even stopped smoking because of this magical thing (and that's worth €400 don't you think so?).

 

i stay with my intellivision, it didn't keeps me from smoking but it humms as well.

Edited April 2, 2018 by Gernot

[awhite2600]

Like many others, I was still buying new Intellivision and Atari 2600 games well into the early '90s. I would often find retailers (Toys R US, Zellers, etc) that had found games in a back room and put them out for $5.00. I picked up Diner, Dig Dug and some late release 2600 games around this time.

 

I also purchased an INTV System III to replace my dead Intellivision I - which my family had purchased in about 1982. I still have both consoles. The original could be used for parts.

 

Within a couple of years the 8-bit games were gone from retail and the bounty of thrift shop finds had begun.

[+intvsteve]

Why did it last? Perhaps my story is similar to others... The age group that had strong formative memories and made the system popular was moving on to live on their own (more or less). They started coming into a little bit of cash flow. Not yet full-on adulthood, but no longer totally dependent children, either... It was an inexpensive way to "have your own stuff" and still have a touchstone to those simpler times.

 

My mom would save the catalogs that came while I was away in college -- they must've gotten my address from the "send in 5 box flaps for some more games" promotion. My sophomore year of college, I bought an INTV System III so I could have my own system, as the family was still using the one at home. Over that year, I mail-orded quite a few games - Thin Ice, Tower of Doom, Defender, Centipede, Pac-Man, and several others.

 

Later, returning to the US after being out of the country for a year, I saw (and disparaged, much to my current shame) the 'Super Pro' lineup, especially ribbing the craziness of Super Pro Wrestling and Spiker at Toys 'R' Us (all those exclamation points!!!! ! !!). A long-time friend from gradeschool through college years was working at TRU and showed me the Intellivision section in the store as he moved on past to the Sega / NES stuff. That must have been Sept. 1990. I had zero pocket money and never got those games. In fact that was during a huge drought period in terms of gaming for me personally. But there was that window up to 1988 where I was still buying new games and backfilling others.

[Robert Sublett]

Well, for me it was simple. My grandmother didn't mind me having games, She just wasn't going to let me start a new system with Nintendo. I played the Intv until I could no longer get it fixed which was sometime in 1992. She did let me get a game boy in 1990, but my second console was a SNES which I bought in college in 1994.