Mattel vs. Intellivision Inc.

[lazzeri]

   Hello,

 

   Trying to learn a little more about INTV so please be nice. ?

 

   I was poking around INTV Funhouse and saw that there are games released by both Mattel and Intellivision Inc. I had a hard time spotting the difference between them.

 

   It seems that most INTV Inc have white labels, I got that. But I was looking at box scans for games released by both companies (like AD&D) and couldn´t spot any obvious difference.

 

   Is it safe to assume that gatefold boxes are always Mattel? But "regular" boxes does NOT necessarily means a INTV Inc, correct?

 

   Would someone shed some light? Pretty pretty please?

[lazzeri]

(The reason I´m asking is that I´ve got a few sealed carts that I must spot the difference from the box alone, BTW)

[mr_me]

Look again, the Mattel boxes will say "Mattel Electronics" on the front.  As far as I know INTV did not make any gatefold boxes; their versions will say Intellivision Inc on the back of the box.

Edited November 15, 2019 by mr_me

[lazzeri]

1 minute ago, mr_me said:

Look again the Mattel boxes will say "Mattel Electronics" on the front.  As far as I know INTV did not make any gatefold boxes; their boxes will say Intellivision Inc on the back.

   HOLY CR*P how I missed that? ?

 

   I was looking for something in the tiny texts around the picture, not in the picture itself. Shame on me.

 

   Thank you! ?

[+intvsteve]

@mr_me nailed it. In fact, Intellivision, Inc. releases really seem to be a hodge-podge. The most obvious tells are the boxes, as you've noticed, the cheap paper black & white manuals, and the black & white cart labels. Sometimes you also get different overlays.

 

Even better: You can get a mixed bag, like a regular colorful label, or a white cart label applied over top a Mattel label! @JasonlikesINTV has been tracking these so if you find some, share pictures!

 

I'm not sure if Mattel manuals have appeared in Intellivision, Inc. boxes... But we *have* found Intellivision Inc. manuals with Mattel boxes. IIRC they may have been wrapped to carts initially meant for non-English-speaking markets. I.e. you might find a Mattel copy of Utopia with a German manual and an Intellivision, Inc. manual in English stuff along with it.

[CharonPDX]

The very earliest days of "Intellivision Inc" apparently had some "new old stock" Mattel bits left over - boxes, cartridges, manuals, that may have gotten mix-and-matched as they ran out of the older Mattel bits unevenly for different games. I would say it is probably a near-guarantee that you won't see "Mattel box with Inty Inc manual" *AND* "Inty Inc box with Mattel manual" for the same game; you'd see one or the other for a given game.

And the mix-and-match are likely very rare, as it happened just during the transition and clearing out of old materials.  But they're not "worth more" simply because there's no easy way to guarantee it came that way. You can only verify the mis-match by opening it, and once it's open, anyone could have put the mismatched item in the box later.  I guess if you X-rayed the boxes to figure out if there's a mismatch inside a sealed box maybe....

[+intellivotion]

16 hours ago, intvsteve said:

(...)

 

I'm not sure if Mattel manuals have appeared in Intellivision, Inc. boxes... But we *have* found Intellivision Inc. manuals with Mattel boxes. IIRC they may have been wrapped to carts initially meant for non-English-speaking markets. I.e. you might find a Mattel copy of Utopia with a German manual and an Intellivision, Inc. manual in English stuff along with it.

I did actually find a Mattel German manual in my Intellivision Inc. copy of Chess, which also had an ordinary Intellivision Inc. manual in English. And, to make the things even more complicated, I found it in Italy...