For as "disappointed" as the suits were with Intellivoice sales...

[Intelligentleman]

You sure do see the dang things EVERYWHERE. And I'm not talking about new old stock. I'm talking about units that have obviously logged some flight time with B-17 Bomber. What the hell did they want? And maybe if they'd actually supported the peripheral beyond the launch window it would have been a steady seller?

[Zendocon]

The IntelliVoice was released not too long before the industry crash, so there wasn't much of a "launch window".  When INTV took over, everybody decided not to bother supporting that or the ECS because they couldn't afford to reduce their potential market any further, with people who were getting the catalogs but didn't have those peripherals.

[Intelligentleman]

But didn't the Intellivoice come out in 1981? That was still a pretty golden time for Mattel Electronics. Also, it always seemed weird to me that they didn't incorporate the Intellivoice technology directly into the Intellivision II. Heck, or even the Aquarius for that matter. What that would have meant, though, is that Intellivoice support would have to be - largely - optional. Non-gameplay-essential. Which, imo, is precisely what made that initial batch of Intellivoice games so cool. 

Edited April 16, 2021 by Intelligentleman

[Intelligentleman]

And let's not forget that this is the SAME Mattel Electronics that saw fit to release a red stripe variant of the original Intellivision II hardware upgrade that was, what, less than a year old? That is bonkers.

 

EDIT: But the ECS can only have 2K ram? Why?

Edited April 16, 2021 by Intelligentleman

[Intelligentleman]

Perhaps if Mattel Electronics hadn't tried to launch a new peripheral (Intellivoice) AND a hardware revision (INTY II) AND a hardware revision variant (INTY II Red Stripe) AND an entirely separate home computer product, the Aquarius, at pretty much the same time...

 

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention the failed Keyboard Component, the System Changer, the Music Synthesizer, and the hobbled ECS.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Intelligentleman

[Intelligentleman]

But then I remind myself that as bizarre and flailing as these decisions seem today in hindsight, this was uncharted territory for the still fledgling home videogame/computing market. They were probably making a lot of this up as they went, combined with internal politics, hubris, and I imagine mountains of high-grade 80s cocaine.

[hwrd]

The Intellivoice (and the Odyssey2 voice module) came out in '82.

 

I have both, and the O2 was my first console, but the Intellivoice games needing voice as a requirement made for better games in my opinion.  Voice on the O2 in games was more of a frill to the game.  There were fun games that had the Voice n the Odyssey, but never was it needed in those games. 

 

[BSRSteve]

1 hour ago, Intelligentleman said:

But didn't the Intellivoice come out in 1981? That was still a pretty golden time for Mattel Electronics. Also, it always seemed weird to me that they didn't incorporate the Intellivoice technology directly into the Intellivision II. Heck, or even the Aquarius for that matter. What that would have meant, though, is that Intellivoice support would have to be - largely - optional. Non-gameplay-essential. Which, imo, is precisely what made that initial batch of Intellivoice games so cool. 

Definitely not 1981. I started at Mattel in mid-October 1981, and after spending a week or orienting myself to everything, worked on two of the Intellivoice launch titles (Space Spartans and B-17 Bomber). It took well ovr two months to finish those, even with multiple people working on it. And Gene Smith, the guy who wrote Bomb Squad (the third title), started AFTER I did (two weeks later, same day as Keith Robinson, IIRC), and did the game by himself.

[Special Teams]

From the old BSR site:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160729190509/http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/games/credits/voice.html

[Intelligentleman]

15 minutes ago, Special Teams said:

From the old BSR site:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160729190509/http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/games/credits/voice.html

OMG... Space Shuttle! Someone please finish this!

[Intelligentleman]

57 minutes ago, BSRSteve said:

Definitely not 1981. I started at Mattel in mid-October 1981, and after spending a week or orienting myself to everything, worked on two of the Intellivoice launch titles (Space Spartans and B-17 Bomber). It took well ovr two months to finish those, even with multiple people working on it. And Gene Smith, the guy who wrote Bomb Squad (the third title), started AFTER I did (two weeks later, same day as Keith Robinson, IIRC), and did the game by himself.

Ahh... Sorry. I flipped over my intellivoice and saw 1981 stamped on the bottom. But that only makes the timeline of events more baffling as someone looking back with the benefit of hindsight.

 

Those two games you worked on were among my earliest video game memories. 

[Games For Your Intellivision]

10 hours ago, BSRSteve said:

Definitely not 1981. I started at Mattel in mid-October 1981, and after spending a week or orienting myself to everything, worked on two of the Intellivoice launch titles (Space Spartans and B-17 Bomber). It took well ovr two months to finish those, even with multiple people working on it. And Gene Smith, the guy who wrote Bomb Squad (the third title), started AFTER I did (two weeks later, same day as Keith Robinson, IIRC), and did the game by himself.

I recall seeing the Intellivoice at a local electronics show in Hamilton, Ontario in I believe the autumn of 1982. The guy who sold me an Atari 400 computer in September 1982 had them and two games (I believe Space Spartans and B-17 Bomber) and I had never seen them before. I grabbed them immediately but had some problems with my 1980 unit not working with it until it warmed up. 

[Intelligentleman]

5 hours ago, Games For Your Intellivision said:

I recall seeing the Intellivoice at a local electronics show in Hamilton, Ontario in I believe the autumn of 1982. The guy who sold me an Atari 400 computer in September 1982 had them and two games (I believe Space Spartans and B-17 Bomber) and I had never seen them before. I grabbed them immediately but had some problems with my 1980 unit not working with it until it warmed up. 

Those two games really made an impact on me. With Space Spartans I had no idea what I was doing as a kid, but then one time I managed to get into the Battle screen and it blew my mind because I didn't know there was more to the game than just the grid. Hey, I was 6 years old playing these games back in 1987/88.

[Tempest]

It's funny that everyone says Space Spartans is their favorite Intellivoice game as that's the only one I never played.  I always loved Bomb Squad myself.  To this day I annoy my coworkers saying "The Code!  The Code! Figure out the Code!"  when they're programming something.

[mr_me]

The intellivoice cartridges release in 1982 is well documented and they're not going to sell the intellivoice without any cartridges available.  Work on the project must have started at least in 1981.  I remember seeing B17 being played in a department store in the big city in 1982.  This stuff was slower to come out to the suburbs where I was.  I was thinking it was summer before school started but not sure.

 

People say intellivoice sales were disappointing but B17 and Space Spartans cartridge sales weren't bad, about 300k each.  Night Stalker and Deadly Discs came out the same year and sold about 348k each with a much larger install base.  So an intellivoice attach rate of maybe 20-25% in its one year on the market (numbers are through 1983/06).  Not sure what they were expecting.

Edited April 17, 2021 by mr_me

[Intelligentleman]

35 minutes ago, mr_me said:

The intellivoice cartridges release in 1982 is well documented and they're not going to sell the intellivoice without any cartridges available.  Work on the project must have started at least in 1981.  I remember seeing B17 being played in a department store in the big city in 1982.  This stuff was slower to come out to the suburbs where I was.  I was thinking it was summer before school started but not sure.

 

People say intellivoice sales were disappointing but B17 and Space Spartans cartridge sales weren't bad, about 300k each.  Night Stalker and Deadly Discs came out the same year and sold about 348k each with a much larger install base.  So an intellivoice attach rate of maybe 20-25% in its one year on the market (numbers are through 1983/06).  Not sure what they were expecting.

Exactly! I'd say the device was a success.

[mthompson]

It didn't help that Intellivoice games cost quite a bit more than the standard Intellivision titles. That fact plus the cost of the Intellivoice itself made the project an uphill climb. If they would have built voice into the Intellivision II, that would have been a nice selling point.

[Intelligentleman]

36 minutes ago, mthompson said:

It didn't help that Intellivoice games cost quite a bit more than the standard Intellivision titles. That fact plus the cost of the Intellivoice itself made the project an uphill climb. If they would have built voice into the Intellivision II, that would have been a nice selling point.

Did they ever package it with a game? The main 3 launch titles are all pretty awesome, imo. Nintendo packaged Star Fox 64 with a Rumble Pack to improve penetration.

 

Edit: and coincidentally, the other main selling point of the game was a then-incredible amount of in-game dialogue that, if not integral to game play, certainly entranced the experience.

Edited April 17, 2021 by Intelligentleman

[mr_me]

7 hours ago, mthompson said:

It didn't help that Intellivoice games cost quite a bit more than the standard Intellivision titles. That fact plus the cost of the Intellivoice itself made the project an uphill climb. If they would have built voice into the Intellivision II, that would have been a nice selling point.

Where I was an intellivision cartridge was either $37 or $38 and an intellivoice cartridge was $40.  Not that big a deal but the intellivoice was $80 and that made B17 Bomber an expensive $120 game.  Chess at $45 was the most expensive cartridge I remember.

 

Later in 1983 I thought they were giving away intellivoices with an intellivision ii but I could be wrong.

Edited April 17, 2021 by mr_me

[Games For Your Intellivision]

My German grandmother was not impressed with B-17 Bomber. I think it was a good call not to release it in Germany ? 

[Games For Your Intellivision]

21 hours ago, Tempest said:

It's funny that everyone says Space Spartans is their favorite Intellivoice game as that's the only one I never played.  I always loved Bomb Squad myself.  To this day I annoy my coworkers saying "The Code!  The Code! Figure out the Code!"  when they're programming something.

I agree. I think it is the best of the Mattel voice games.

[Intymike]

5 hours ago, Games For Your Intellivision said:

My German grandmother was not impressed with B-17 Bomber. I think it was a good call not to release it in Germany ? 

 

They had some scruple back then.

And it would have gone probably on the child protection index like River Raid anyway.

 

[Walter Ives]

On 4/17/2021 at 8:32 AM, mthompson said:

It didn't help that Intellivoice games cost quite a bit more than the standard Intellivision titles. That fact plus the cost of the Intellivoice itself made the project an uphill climb. If they would have built voice into the Intellivision II, that would have been a nice selling point.

Well, in a way Mattel did "incorporate" voice into the Intellivision II. Sales of the Intellivoice line were so dismal and the retailer return rate so high that product was piling up in the warehouses. To clean it out, Mattel began offering free Intellivoice units with the purchase of a Master Component immediately after the close of the 1982 Christmas season on a "submit proof of purchase to factory" basis. This carried over into the Intellivision II launch and continued until Mattel Electronics' demise. Retailers wouldn't stock the Intellivoice, you actually could no longer buy one in stores. And surprise of surprises: most master component purchasers didn't bother to send in for their free unit.

But for the Great Intellivoice Giveaway, all the Intellivoice units and cartridges you find on E-bay today would be swimming with E.T. in the sands of New Mexico.