The Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. The word intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television".The Intellivision was developed by Mattel Electronics, a subsidiary of Mattel formed expressly for the development of electronic games. By the way, when Intellivision was launched in 1979, it sold 175,000, $299 units in its first year.
Intellivision was the first console to feature a controller with a directional pad that allowed 16 directions. Intellivision was the second game console to provide real-time human and robot voices in the middle of gameplay, courtesy of the IntelliVoice module. Intellivision also released the Intellivision II console which was described as "smaller and lighter than the original, yet with the same powerful 16-bit microprocessor. Intellivision controllers were quite unusual: they were hardwired into the unit (at least, with the Intellivision I), had a 12-key numeric keypad, two fire buttons located on each side, and a control disc that detected 16 positions. In that first year Mattel sold 175,000 Intellivision consoles, and the library grew to 19 games. In addition to the Intellivoice module, 1983 also saw the introduction of a redesigned model, called the Intellivision II (featuring detachable controllers and sleeker case), the System Changer (which played Atari 2600 games on the Intellivision II), and a music keyboard add-on for the ECS. The Intellivision was also the first system to feature downloadable games (though without a storage device the games vanished once the machine was turned off). Many people bought an Intellivision with plans to turn it into a home computer when the keyboard was released. There was a huge marketing campaign behind this (one-third of the back of the Intellivision box was dedicated to the "Under Development" keyboard), but months and then years passed without the keyboard being released.
George "The Fatman" Sanger, a game audio legend who's been producing sound for games since the era of Intellivision in 1983, received the Community Contribution Award "for his numerous programs that encourage interactive audio innovation and industry improvement. For Intellivision fans, he's most famous for creating the theme for Thin Ice. Third party Atari developers Activision, and Imagic began releasing games for the Intellivision, as did hardware rivals Atari and Colecovision. Although Burger Time was a popular game on the Intellivision and was programmed by Blue Sky Ranger Ray Kaestner in record time, the five-month manufacturing cycle meant that the game did not appear until the late spring of 1983, after the video game crash had severely damaged game sales.
Yes, Mattel actually put in a subroutine to prevent the Intellivision II from playing its competitor's games. The Intellivision had some popular games, like Major League Baseball, Astrosmash, and Night Stalker, but a large percentage of Intellivision's game library consisted of sports or traditional card and board games. Many of the original Intellivision games were programmed by college students as part of their computer programming curriculum.The best selling Intellivision game of all time, MLB was used in ads to show how its graphics totally blew away Atari's.
Intellivision was so popular that its maker, Mattel, the toy company, earned $100,000,000 in profits in 1982 after two million consoles were sold. More than 6 million Intellivision consoles were sold during its 12 year run.A collection of Intellivision games was reproduced onto a PlayStation game, titled Intellivision Classic Games.
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