What do you think if?

[atari5200dude82]

What do you think if the video game market crash never happened in 83 and 84. If Mattel would gave the Intellivoice and the Ecs a longer life. Would you think that any the third party developers, like Imagic and Activision or Parker brothers, would eventually make games for the Ecs and Intellivoice in 84. That would be cool. What do you think?.

[voltron]

What do you think if the video game market crash never happened in 83 and 84. If Mattel would gave the Intellivoice and the Ecs a longer life. Would you think that any the third party developers, like Imagic and Activision or Parker brothers, would eventually make games for the Ecs and Intellivoice in 84. That would be cool. What do you think?.

 

intellivision was destined to fail. They did not know their crowd. Intellivision marketing would have worked well today, but not during generation one. For example, game companies try to get nfl to let them use their logo on their games bc many of the new modern games are geared to adults who were kids during the atari years. Intellivision was geared to adults, who viewd video games as just a toy. Atari knew their market and geared it to kids, and did their best to link games to pop culture of the time like et, ghostbusters, spiderman all the stuff kids like. intellivision was just to advance for its time.

Edited October 31, 2012 by voltron

[Dryfter]

What would you say if I told you I think the console, as we know it, is about to go through another "death".

 

Games as we know them are changing as we speak. They're moving towards download games. It's 100x more cost effective for companies to develop them and allow people to buy and download them directly to a system. I think that carts/CDs will be phased out over the next 5-10 years and everything will be downloaded....

 

hold onto those carts boys.

[+Gemintronic]

Digital games that you don't own are already prominent. Big corps just have to shove the concept down our collective throats a little bit more.

 

The conditions for the crash would have happened anyway. What if MS/IBM didn't win the computer war? Would we all be playing games on an Amiga 6000 or Atari Falcon TTXLXE900?

[voltron]

What would you say if I told you I think the console, as we know it, is about to go through another "death".

 

Games as we know them are changing as we speak. They're moving towards download games. It's 100x more cost effective for companies to develop them and allow people to buy and download them directly to a system. I think that carts/CDs will be phased out over the next 5-10 years and everything will be downloaded....

 

hold onto those carts boys.

 

I agree, the games will be more like net flix..

[pimpmaul69]

I agree, the games will be more like net flix..

maybe, maybe not. the psp go failed because it was a d/l only system. the problem is we as consumers WILL NOT PAY 40-60 USD for a d/l game. game publishers are never gonna try to pass the savings onto us as in the case of the psp go the ps vita or the nintendo 3ds. do not try to use android apps as an argument cause the games dont compare to the latest halo or call of duty.

[+DZ-Jay]

intellivision was destined to fail. They did not know their crowd. Intellivision marketing would have worked well today, but not during generation one. For example, game companies try to get nfl to let them use their logo on their games bc many of the new modern games are geared to adults who were kids during the atari years. Intellivision was geared to adults, who viewd video games as just a toy. Atari knew their market and geared it to kids, and did their best to link games to pop culture of the time like et, ghostbusters, spiderman all the stuff kids like. intellivision was just to advance for its time.

 

I don't agree. Intellivision marketing certainly worked well. You forget that the Atari VCS had 3 years of lead over the Intellivision in the market, so it was already an established brand, which partly explains the significantly larger number of titles. Had they both come out at the same time, things may have been different.

 

I think the Intellivision would have thrived. Many upcoming titles had much promise of success, as well as the hardware planned.

 

I think that a longer run would have enabled programmers to get more acquainted with the hardware capabilities, and push them beyond their known limits of the time. This is what happened to other long running consoles, for instance the PS2, where by the end of its life saw games performing amazing feats of visual trickery (such as Shadow Of The Colossus).

 

The Intellivision's life was curtailed artificially by the market crash, exacerbated by bad decisions taken by Mattel that did not pay up in time; not necessarily because it was a failure.

 

-dZ.

Edited October 31, 2012 by DZ-Jay

[+DZ-Jay]

maybe, maybe not. the psp go failed because it was a d/l only system. the problem is we as consumers WILL NOT PAY 40-60 USD for a d/l game. game publishers are never gonna try to pass the savings onto us as in the case of the psp go the ps vita or the nintendo 3ds. do not try to use android apps as an argument cause the games dont compare to the latest halo or call of duty.

 

That's a different problem for another discussion. There is a misperception by the consumers that distributing a product comprises the bulk of its cost, and that switching to electronic distribution must necessarily reduce the production costs.

 

However, that is not necessarily true. Due to economies of scale and many other factors, distribution is not necessarily such a large portion of the costs. You still need to invest millions of dollars to pay the creative, development, and management teams in order to get a quality product done.

 

Then there's electronic distribution, which is not free (not if you want a stable, secure, and reliable system), and its cost are commensurate with demand.

 

Of course, the perception that since there is no tangible product, it is not "real," and therefore has inherently less value, is hard to combat.

 

-dZ.

[voltron]

maybe, maybe not. the psp go failed because it was a d/l only system. the problem is we as consumers WILL NOT PAY 40-60 USD for a d/l game. game publishers are never gonna try to pass the savings onto us as in the case of the psp go the ps vita or the nintendo 3ds. do not try to use android apps as an argument cause the games dont compare to the latest halo or call of duty.

 

Tis is because its in the infancy stages. I mean the music industry did not believe apple when they said they wanted to sell games from 99 cents. Eventually one or two companies will emerge and it will be like netflix, play any game for one low price per month. But this is still the early stage.

[intvnut]

That's a different problem for another discussion. There is a misperception by the consumers that distributing a product comprises the bulk of its cost, and that switching to electronic distribution must necessarily reduce the production costs.

 

However, that is not necessarily true. Due to economies of scale and many other factors, distribution is not necessarily such a large portion of the costs. You still need to invest millions of dollars to pay the creative, development, and management teams in order to get a quality product done.

 

Then there's electronic distribution, which is not free (not if you want a stable, secure, and reliable system), and its cost are commensurate with demand.

 

Of course, the perception that since there is no tangible product, it is not "real," and therefore has inherently less value, is hard to combat.

 

-dZ.

 

My problem with a download-only system (with DRM, that is) is that I can't resell what I purchased, nor can I just move it to any system that plays the game. In terms of value to the buyer, that's a pretty big drawback.

 

In volume, a DVD-based game probably costs $2 for the hardware, tops. (That's the economy of scale benefit of making a million of something.) So, you're right that going from $2 to near $0 for distribution isn't a big dent on costs. But that's not the only $ you're saving. It also saves the retail and distributor markups. When you go to a download-only model, though, you route that additional money back to the publisher directly.

 

I found this great graphic online that shows what the split is for a typical Xbox360 game:

 

I don't have hard data of my own to back it up, but it seems reasonable. If you cut out retail's 20%, then your $60 only comes down to $48 for everyone else to get their cut. But that assumes that the same pricing model makes sense, and I argue it does not.

 

But, that assumes you're buying a physical good that can be resold and transferred. This value doesn't exist with a DRMed download. It really should command a lower price given that you're killing the resale market, and all these later sales now become first-party sales. There's more people who would need to buy original copies because there's no opportunity to buy second-hand copies. Furthermore, if you buy the game and don't like it, you can't offload it and get some of your money back, so there's increased downside risk for the purchaser. That too factors into the inherent value of the downloaded game.

 

All things to consider. Economics is subtle sometimes.

 

 

In any case, I don't think Intellivision (this thread was about Intellivision, right?) did the wrong thing aiming high. They really were doing just fine with their positioning, until the market crashed, and the fact that INTV produced titles for 6 years after the crash without any hardware upgrade to the base system proves it out. Did they aim to capture adults in addition to children? I think maybe a little—heck, I remember my dad playing Intellivision with us—but when you have a system that costs $600 in today's dollars in an entirely new product category, you gotta get the money holders' buy-in. That said, Mattel is a toy company, and they didn't have any issues marketing it to kids too. You had George "Mr. Intellivision" Plimpton and Henry "E.T. Kid" Thomas.

[voltron]

I don't agree. Intellivision marketing certainly worked well. You forget that the Atari VCS had 3 years of lead over the Intellivision in the market, so it was already an established brand, which partly explains the significantly larger number of titles. Had they both come out at the same time, things may have been different.

 

I think the Intellivision would have thrived. Many upcoming titles had much promise of success, as well as the hardware planned.

 

I think that a longer run would have enabled programmers to get more acquainted with the hardware capabilities, and push them beyond their known limits of the time. This is what happened to other long running consoles, for instance the PS2, where by the end of its life saw games performing amazing feats of visual trickery (such as Shadow Of The Colossus).

 

The Intellivision's life was curtailed artificially by the market crash, exacerbated by bad decisions taken by Mattel that did not pay up in time; not necessarily because it was a failure.

 

-dZ.

 

I dont know here. Generation one was all kids. Atari knew this. They marketed to kids. The "fun" games Atari had. All atari give then name of the gam something the kids liked. Smurfs, spiderman etc. Intellivision was marketing to adults. A 6yo during generation 1 of the atari age could care less if it had nfl logo on the game. But if the called it smurfs playing football it would have sold more just bc they used the word smurf. Intellivision market works well now bc many of the generation one kids are now adults and like games that are like the real thing. So intellivision while it had a superior product did not market it to kids. I mean the advance joystick was marketed to kids, but a kid does not really care if it has 16 positions or just four, they just knew how to use the joystick. Also the games where to difficult for most kids. Atari kept it simple just move the joystick, intellivision was too advance you had keypads side buttons too much going on. Intellivision had a marketing problem, they did not focus on kids they wehre trying to please every one. I they tried to make the console sound like a computer, then a music instrument, then a learning tool, then an arcade.. Kid of generation one were onlly interested in arcades.... not a computer, not a learning tool.

 

This sort of reminds me of apple and google, intellivision is like google and apple is atari. Apple is basically a marketing master. I personally feel google is superior but the public percieves apple as the superior product. I have both devices bc my friends develope stuff for both brands, but with apple it seems like what takes one step on google takes 4 steps on apple yet people say apple is easier to use. Apple recognizes its market and hence markets the device to them, they dont really market the device to "geeks" When google test a product with people they hand it off "geeks" and ask for input, like and dislikes before deciding to release a product. Apple on the other hand test new stuff with 5 and 6 years old to see if they can figure out the device, Apples motto is if a 5 year old can use it any one else can and hence its ready to be released.

 

Dont get me wrong I am not an atari fan, I like intellivision bc I recognize that for the time it was superior to atari. Intellivision was just ahead of its time. limited resources and trying to please everyone was not a good strategy. Then came coleco with better graphics and the understanding that graphics sell more games than any other feature and intellivision instead of releasing a better graphics device went backwards and re released the original console... But overall all systems were going to crash once the market got flooded, Just like the tablet industry will see a crash as more and more tablets appear on the market.

Edited October 31, 2012 by voltron

[+DZ-Jay]

Intvnut,

 

Good points on the lost value of DRM'd content.

 

As for your Intellivision comment, I also agree: Mattel was a toy company and targeted kids. They had a larger ambition to expand the market to adults as well, and even enter the burgeoning home computer market.

 

I stand by my original opinion, that without the market crash of 1983, Mattel Electronics would have survived, and the Intellivision would have thrived.

 

Whether it would have continued being second-banana to the Atari console is arguable, but second place for a popular and profitable product is not a failure.

 

dZ.

[intvnut]

Whether it would have continued being second-banana to the Atari console is arguable, but second place for a popular and profitable product is not a failure.

 

Well, given that Atari's inventory practices were a major component of the crash (failing to measure and manage the full supply chain, rather than just the Atari => distributor hop), in all likelihood Mattel could have weathered the crash and come out ahead of Atari. But, such counterfactual reimaginings are only good for amusing speculation.

 

The real fact of the matter is that at any given time, we seem to have around 2 to 3 solid, leading console platforms in play, with perhaps some minor ones around the edges. In 1982, it was Atari, Intellivision and Coleco. In 1992, it was Nintendo and Sega. In 2012, it seems to be PS3, Xbox360 and Wii. Are they equals? Not really. They each carve out their niche.

 

It's easy to imagine Intellivision carrying on for a long time if the market hadn't washed out.

[pimpmaul69]

Well, given that Atari's inventory practices were a major component of the crash (failing to measure and manage the full supply chain, rather than just the Atari => distributor hop), in all likelihood Mattel could have weathered the crash and come out ahead of Atari. But, such counterfactual reimaginings are only good for amusing speculation.

 

The real fact of the matter is that at any given time, we seem to have around 2 to 3 solid, leading console platforms in play, with perhaps some minor ones around the edges. In 1982, it was Atari, Intellivision and Coleco. In 1992, it was Nintendo and Sega. In 2012, it seems to be PS3, Xbox360 and Wii. Are they equals? Not really. They each carve out their niche.

 

It's easy to imagine Intellivision carrying on for a long time if the market hadn't washed out.

the question i have though is this. mattel wasted tons and tons of money in r&d. would this not possibly have been their downfall if not for the crash?

[+DZ-Jay]

the question i have though is this. mattel wasted tons and tons of money in r&d. would this not possibly have been their downfall if not for the crash?

 

Well, it's only "wasted" because they closed up before anything came to fruition.

 

I agree that those investment and some bad decisions exacerbated the situation when the crash happened, causing them to collapse completely without a commensurate cash flow.

 

However, like intvnut, I think that without the crash, they would have been able to weather the bad investments and even see some of that R&D pay itself back.

 

But then again, the crash did happen, so we will never know "what if."

 

dZ.

[intvnut]

the question i have though is this. mattel wasted tons and tons of money in r&d. would this not possibly have been their downfall if not for the crash?

 

Without a doubt, Mattel Electronics had a lot of hardware in the pipeline. Had they been able to stay more focused on MAGIC (and had Motorola been able to execute it in a timely manner), I think that would have helped.

 

Mattel Electronics did have a huge appetite for hardware R & D, and that definitely contributed to its downfall. When Mattel Electronics folded, it almost took the parent company with it. It too got caught up in the bubble mentality. I don't blame it solely on Atari. An alternate history that lacks the '83 bubble would require all the major players to be more restrained.

[DoctorTom]

I don't really agree that the first generation was comprised of kids of age 6. I think the biggest age group when Atari came out were kids around 10, and when Intellivision came out, these kids were in middle school and had been following sports teams pretty avidly for several years, and official licenses added to realistic sports games only added to the appeal. I personally recall being extremely jealous that my friend had an amazing MLB game to play, when I had Home Run on Atari! Also, marketing to adults was not a bad decision necessarily -- as adults were buying the machine, and sports licenses would be very impressive to them. In fact, my friend got the Intellivision because his father was so impressed with the sports games.

 

I really think Intellivision could have been much more successful if Mattel had made a more manageable controller. For quick action games requiring good control, the Atari joystick and even more so the paddle can't be beat.

Edited October 31, 2012 by DoctorTom

[IntellivisionDude]

I also think it was a different time back then. Your parents picked out what you got and had to make wise decisions especially with game systems being something new. It was an important decision. Today kids are too spoiled and usually get what they want. I think in the late 70's early 80's your mom and dad was still making decision Ward and June Cleaver style.

 

 

Yesterday (Must make important decision that could impact this whole family)

 

 

 

Today (Must buy all the toys my kids want so they don't cry or kill me and i can be the cool parent)

 

[nukeshed]

Had they been able to stay more focused on MAGIC (and had Motorola been able to execute it in a timely manner), I think that would have helped.

 

Durrrr, I'm not edumacated on this piece of Mattel history. Anyone got any resources where I might re-edumacate myself?

[intvnut]

Durrrr, I'm not edumacated on this piece of Mattel history. Anyone got any resources where I might re-edumacate myself?

 

To keep the discussion focused, let's hop over to the Intellivision 3/4 thread.