supahwally

This statement implies those of us who are non-Christian somehow do not value the Amico for being family friendly, and it also implies that Christianity values 'family' over other religions (or non-religious people). If you think having religion (of any kind) has anything to do with loving and caring for your family, you are either very young or very deluded. You may want to widen your understanding of the world (or think more carefully about your wording) before making statements like that. If it's what you truly believe, keep it to yourself. I could go on, but I won't.

LOL yeah, in the interest of seeming somewhat sane, I avoid posting too often. Tommy, I fully understand your marketing goals and philosophy and believe in it. What I can't believe is the low standard of research from major outlets like engaget. It gets to me like the crazies on youtube got to you for awhile, and I keep searching for ways to prove them wrong-which isn't possible. It's hard to imagine someone getting paid to be that oblivious. Back to my hole!

Happy New Year everyone! Astrosmash is looking great, nice video. I'm back to complain about the media's inability to understand the Amico controller, or the inherent value in the system at a $249 price point. This article https://www.engadget.com/alternative-consoles-analogue-playdate-intellivision-atari-2021-140044860.html calls the controllers 'simplistic' and compares it unfavorably with systems starting at $50 more, without grasping that you can get six Amico games for $60 instead of just one....even though it's mentioned earlier that the games are under $10. The stated goals of the console (family, co-op play, ease of use, safety, no scams) are summed in a paragraph that ends with 'That's the idea, anyway', as if it's all just a feel-good mission statement without evidence to back it up. The author quickly returns to the standard 'retro system, expensive, limited market to 80s people' narrative that the gaming press is unable to let go of. I wonder if a $229 asking price (or anything below $50 less than a Switch or XBox) would be enough to truly separate the Amico from pricier systems in the minds of these people. Typical consumers-Americans, at least-can't do the math to calculate long term value. I'm afraid at $249 they'll only see it as $50 more for a 'real' system with no 'its for dad' baggage. I even wonder if a $199 price point with only one controller included would make it irresistible. Make the smartphone-as-controller feature a major marketing point for the initial sale and extra $70 controllers would sell themselves when people realize just how amazing they are compared to the phone. You could offer a more expensive version that includes 2 controllers alongside the 'budget' model, and mimic what Microsoft is doing with the Xbox with different versions. On another note, since people are still mentioning cool games they'd like to see on the Amico, I'd like to mention a board game (it's also on Steam, apparently) called Wingspan. We got it as a gift for Christmas and have been playing it constantly. My apologies if it's been mentioned before. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1054490/Wingspan/ As an aside, I had a good laugh when we got this game. Last time I posted here, I mentioned my first video game concept: 'Hawk Hawk', loosely based on 'Shark Shark' and thought up while watching the birds at my backyard feeders. While Wingspan isn't exactly what I had in mind, it's in the neighborhood, and I was happy to see something like it out in the world. I've actually learned a lot playing it, and we were able to identify one bird (Northern Flicker) that we couldn't figure out from the photos in our Audubon book of North American birds!

I see double posting isn't frowned upon? I'm outta control! This post is #25,000!

You guys are outta control! Next post is #25,000!

Thanks! Credit to Ms. K for the name. I told her about the idea but called it 'Birdfeeder', which is horrible. As soon as I told her it was based on Shark Shark she laughed and thought Hawk Hawk was an obvious choice. Uh, duh, yeah!

I don't social media. It's nice.

Can I also just say that it makes my blood boil when I'm looking for new info on the Amico and my Google feed is showing me Atari crap? I know about the stupid hotel and some games, and I don't want to. I've never searched for Atari, and the only time I even type that word is when I come here. 4th on the link list is the horrible hit piece CNET put out in August. What gives? Is this just me?

Since we are talking about games, I had the first video game idea in my life last week. I build engines and tend to think in nuts, bolts, and mechanical motion, but standing in my kitchen watching all the birds at my feeders one morning gave me an idea. I have a couple poles with flat and hanging feeders in a small yard with a line of trees at the back, and the birds like flitting back and forth between the feeders and the trees. All different size birds show up, and there is a certain order to their behavior-generally the bigger birds get the seeds they want and the little ones wait until there is an opportunity. It's all fun and games until a hawk comes flying through the yard like a missile and steals off with one of the feeding birds...the cycle of life, if you will. Then it clicked: What about a Shark, Shark! style game, but with birds, trees, birdfeeders, and hawks? You start as a tiny bird. You get points for eating food out of feeders, but if you bump a bigger bird, you get pushed out and lose points. Get enough food, you become a bigger bird with more access to the feeders. All of this happens under the constant and random threat of the hawk flying in, snatching you up, and taking you away. Variables could include trees/landforms, feeder types and styles, food types and styles (some worth more 'energy/points' than others), and various birds of 'prey', with size, accuracy, and skill increasing as your bird gets bigger. Maybe even introduce the need to 'fly' with button presses, like it works in 'Joust'. The obvious title? 'Hawk, Hawk!' Which, as I just discovered, is very awkward to say out loud. Hey, we all gotta start somewhere.

I don't understand why so many people don't understand the Amico. The very idea of it seems to be rubbing a portion of the gaming industry and gaming public the wrong way. Are modern gamers who isolate themselves for hours to play harboring some kind of guilt about it? If not, what's with the defensive and irrational reaction by so many to a simple system that people MUST be in the same room to play against (or cooperatively with) one another? The Amico is not your Mom telling you to take off the headphones and come down for dinner, it's not your wife standing in the doorway waiting for you to finish your game and take care of the kids, it's not your fat, depressed dog who hasn't been exercised in a week because you have a level to beat. It's just a console, stop projecting! The people who write about the gaming industry appear to think it's current state is the only possible way it will ever be, and challenging that notion confuses them. 'Baffling' in the title, CNET? Seriously? Then, a questioning subtitle implying the public at large will be as puzzled as the 'experts'? Really? With the team Tommy has assembled, the international game developers on board, the worldwide distribution network, exclusive editions for different retailers, not to mention controllers with a form factor never seen before...I think the word you are looking for is 'unprecedented'. The CNET article title, subtitle, AND those critical lead in paragraphs were all loaded with negativity and derision. He calls it a 'Bizarro' console. The controller is described as a 'weird, knock-off iPod'. 'Bizarro and Weird' put in the reader's mind that the controller is hard to understand, and 'knock off' implies...cheap. Any attempt at a compliment has a caveat-'the controllers look interesting IF you're a lover of paddle games'...huh? The caption under the Earthworm Jim rendering asks if anyone even remembers the first 3. He says the Amico 'supports 8 player multiplayer, if you buy more controllers', which is a flat-out lie. No mention of the smartphone app that allows your phone to be a controller? The smartphone-as-controller thing is HUGE. Massive. Never done before, groundbreaking, and this guy not only doesn't mention it, but implies you need to spend more money to use this with more than 2 people-one of the major selling points. Pathetic. Deliberately misleading or unprofessionally lazy? Base on the tone of the article, I'm picking the former. Sure, he talks about the games, but includes little digs all the way through. Calling it bean-bag toss, not Cornhole, like it's a little kids game. No mention of the reasons for the 2021 delay, no mention of the experience level of the Amico team, no mention of the international developers and sales teams, no mention of retailer exclusives, no mention of the number of consoles that have already been pre-ordered. Just the 'Coolier Than Thou' tone of the hardcore gamer, with a bit of implied eye-roll in the direction of these clowns who think there is a market for...whatever it is they are trying to do. Insular is the word that keeps coming to mind. Did the Wii even exist to these people? The idea that the market is being fully served is absurd. If my coworker, who knows little about the Amico (but is casually interested, he's 40, played video games all his life and has 2 kids in early teen years) found that CNET article, I am quite certain he'd lose interest. That article was absolutely a hit piece-consciously or not-and fits exactly what I said at the beginning: The Amico triggers some personal response in 'gamers' that makes them immediately, irrationally defensive. OK that's my rant. I'll be back the next time something pisses me off.

FINALLY! I come here daily and had to sit on my hands the last few weeks to keep from posting the 'Let It Go' video. A lot.

This got me thinking about UI changes to various websites and programs I've used frequently over the years. 'Clean' looking pages appeal greatly to designers, fewer visible options are a way to avoid visual overload for the user, but there is a limit. One technique that's being used a lot now is the hidden menu. When I print labels for ebay via the pop-up menu, the print options tab stays visible for a couple seconds, and than vanishes, invisible unless I hover the mouse pointer over that exact spot on the screen! This is fine for the frequent user, or even an infrequent user who understands right away how to proceed because they have encountered similar things before. I can't even imagine my 80 year old parents being confronted with an essentially blank screen because they didn't happen to be looking at it before the menu faded out. Making the inexperienced user feel stupid, with nowhere to turn for help (where's that printed book of instructions? Online!) has always struck me as arrogant and a bit insular. Phones are notorious for this. I don't use 85% of my phone's features, because learning how to use them requires an early adopter/teen or 'hobby' mentality, where the end user is imagined to be so enamored with this device they willingly spend free time playing around with it, digging through submenus, and allowing all kinds of data access that I'm not comfortable with. I won't even enable Bixby on my Samsung. Screw that guy. Let me put it this way: I had no problem learning how to program VCR's back in the 80's. My age 50ish parents wanted nothing to do with it. 4 buttons needed to be pushed in the right order at the right time, and there were instructions telling you how to do it. It was not difficult, and once you did a couple you knew the thought process behind it and could program any of them. Did that matter to people over 40 or so back then? Nope, it was alien and made them feel stupid. That clock would blink 12:00 for years if they were left to set it. Not worth the effort.

I used to assume the same-let the user make these choices, what's the negative? Unfortunately, as I get older, it's become obvious that 'decision fatigue' is a very large factor in my late-day entertainment choices. I spend all day making decisions, either about how to fix something, what should be fixed first, or if I'm even in good enough physical condition to fix it today. By 9:30 PM, I'm sick of choices, even if they seem simple and allow me greater customization. It's why a billion Netflix options won't get me away from over-the-air MeTV and Twilight Zone reruns at 11:30. Yes, there is cool new stuff on Netflix, sadly I'm just too tired to pick something, or even choose a 'recommended' title.

Reading the last couple pages made me realize we played a LOT of Intellivision Hockey back in the day. I was terrible at NFL football (I didn't have the console, a friend did and he practiced all the time...would play against himself with 2 controllers) not good at Baseball, but passable in Hockey, so it was actually competitive. The entertainment value of flipping people and watching them lay there on the ice never got old. I swore my team always laid there longer than the other team...

Regarding the Switch Clubhouse Games vs an Amico: It's all about the controller. Other systems can have the similar games, but without the Amico controller, the experience will be different and the games themselves will be different because they are not designed around it. Intellivision Football simply could not be as deep or complex without the unique features of the original Intellivision controller. The AMICO controller: FUNdamentally different! (TM)

Are you here to talk about the Amico, or obsess over these guys? I thought we were moving on? Wouldn't that be something?

Great news about Mr. Allard! I believe the ball is rolling downhill now. Glad others have figured out it's time to move on from the smallminded manchildren on youtube, and begin engaging the target audience. Speaking of non-target audiences, the Amico thread I started Jan27 at GTPlanet.net has crossed 1000 views. It's a forum for people mostly interested in console based driving games/sims, so I'm a bit surprised. Not much in the way of additional comments or discussion, which is fine with me, I'm happy it's attracted that many eyeballs.

Since we are playing around with blanket generational generalizations, I ask you this: Have you ever heard anyone use the term 'wise old Boomer'...ever? 😁

If I had 2 kids(or more) and am looking to buy them a gaming device, I just don't see how Amico has any competition in the market at all. $250 isn't too far outside my 'cool uncle' limit of $100 per niece/nephew when buying Christmas gifts, either. 2 included controllers, plus the ability to use a smartphone to play? Easy choice. The buyer can imagine unboxing under the tree and everyone playing together later, after the morning madness has settled down. Hopefully the 'smartphone as controller' concept (genius!) will be heavily featured in marketing, so parents understand that more kids is not forcing them to buy more accessories. Also, most parents are generally trying to spend the same amount on each kid. A gift both kids can enjoy for one price simplifies the math at a time when people are stressed out and watching the bills pile up.

Awwww, maaaaaaannnnnnn that's just too good! My head exploded.

Wow, a message from one of the normal humans of Earth! How refreshing after a few months of myopic youtubers. I'm looking forward to watching this console 'disrupt' everything in the coming year.

Yes! Never even thought of it. I still play it! Also a TSR board game called Dungeon, those were two biggies for me and my buddies when we were young teens.

Awwww good one it took me a minute to get that!

Same here! I barely cracked 30 WPM with no errors, lets just say that environment was distracting. To this day I still hit 'l' and 'k' when I really want 's' and 'd'. No idea what that's all about. That class was noisy! 1987 or so, we had some old typewriters in that room. When I got a world processor years later it was like a gift from god. I make a lot of mistakes typing, it's so frustrating I basically gave up an engineering career and just ended up working with my hands. Data entry is a huge problem, I am so slow it's just not worth it. I was struggling with self-employment taxes a few years ago, took me 8 hours to enter data into a spreadsheet. Miss K did it in an hour, no mistakes. I gave up at that point. Texting is a complete nightmare, big fingers and thick callouses, it makes me want to scream. The touch screen interface is a nightmare for people like me.

Simple, effective announcement. No opinion, just a basic 'this is what it is, what the target market is, and it looks legit.' What a relief.