Intellivision was released by Mattel in 1979 as a direct competitor to the Atari Video Computer System later known as the Atari 2600. Intellivision initially retailed for $299 ($399 in Canada) which equates to about $1,070 and ($1,428 in Canada) in current dollars respectively.
A portmanteau of Intelligent and Television, Intellivision offered a new option for the growing home video game market and was a more upscale, expensive and higher quality choice to the existing Atari Video Computer System (VCS) known more commonly known as the Atari 2600. As with the Atari, Intellivision operated with a cartridge system, one for each game. Over time they released new games and better quality graphics and gameplay for consumers.
Cartridge Price
Intellivision like other home video games of the day operated with cartridges which are small plastic boxes that plug into the system and enable you to play a game. So every game had its own cartridge and each cost about $20 – $30. Over time prices came down as the range in prices of cartridges increased. So premium-type games may have gotten more expensive as more games were released but bargain bins started to appear with less popular games available for a lower price.
Intellivision Specs
Intellivision was an amazing game console for the time. It had 1K RAM and 6K ROM and the cartridges were read only as well. So every time you put a cartridge in and played the game, you started over again and no high scores were recorded or remembered. By comparison Nintendo Wii has 24 MB and 64 MB GDDR3 SDRAM with 512 MB flash memory. The latest Microsoft X Box has up to 16 GB of RAM. So today’s games are so much more powerful, they’re on another planet.
But for those of us who grew up during this time, these games were the best we had and that was as good as it got. And for us kids, it was amazing stuff. Intellivision was vastly superior to the Atari 2600 in terms of graphics, gameplay and the console itself particularly the controllers.
Intellivision Controllers
Atari controllers had a removable plug in joystick and red button along with a separate paddle controller with a round rotating head used for a driving style game.
Intellivision had 2 integrated controllers that couldn’t be removed with a 16-way pressable disc for direction control, a keypad with 12 pressable buttons and 4 side buttons. The keypad could be covered with a plastic overlay that showed the players which buttons to press and use for each game. So every game came with its own colorful overlay with instructions as to which buttons and controls to use depending on which game you were playing.
For the time the gameplay and hand controllers were excellent. Future games that were released by other companies tended to mimic the Intellivision console certainly more so than Atari’s. By the time Colecovision was released in 1982, their design had a joystick controller at the top, 4 side buttons and a keypad similar to that of Intellivision except their controllers could be plugged in and removed to replace with other controllers they sold for different games like baseball and auto racing.
Intellivision Games
133 total games ended up being produced for Intellivision mostly by manufacturer Mattel and later Intellivision Inc. Intellivision quickly became known for its sports games and the ubiquitous Intellivision running man: The block-like character that resembled a human being anytime a game required the use of people in them.
NHL Hockey, NFL Football, NASL Soccer, NBA Basketball, PBA Bowling, U.S. Ski Team Skiing all carried branding by the major organization behind the sport even though in reality none of the games actually featured players or anything related to the league in question. Boxing, Auto Racing and Tennis were other sports games offered that had no actual league affiliation.
The game play was far superior to what Atari offered and the affiliation with the various sports leagues added some credibility. By today’s standards these games are amateurish but for the late 1970s and early 1980s, they were pretty awesome.
By 1980, Intellivision was producing a number of other non-spots games that became legendary such as Armor Battle (tank game), Sub Hunt, Snafu, Night Stalker, Astrosmash, Space Armada (Space Invaders clone) and more. Plenty of action games, shooters, and even educational games but also gambling and board games were included in the list.
Personal Favorites
While Intellivision produced a few takes offs and clones of popular arcade video games of the time like Lock N Chase (somewhat similar to Pac-Man) and the aforementioned Space Armada, most games were pretty unique. My personal favorites over time included:
- Astrosmash
- Night Stalker
- NHL Hockey
- Auto Racing
- Skiing
- Armor Battle
- Snafu
- Utopia
Utopia is a great concept game and can be played with 1 or 2 players and is widely credited with helping to popularize future simulation games involving building and constructing world and realms. Utopia features 2 islands (one for each player or just one island for you playing by yourself). You build your island with crops, houses, buildings, etc and face nature (rain, hurricanes) that can either benefit or hurt you. The winner scores the most points and most effectively builds their island and serves their growing populace.
PlayCable
It was only available from 1981-83 but this was a great concept in theory. Rather than buying separate cartridges for each game you wanted to play, you could rent the PlayCable box from your local cable provider, plug it into the cartridge slot and you would rent access to 20 games per month which would be delivered by the cable company through the existing cable tv feed. So every month you’d have access to play 20 different Intellivision games and on the first of each month, they’d take several games off and add several new ones to replace them and keep things fresh.
A friend of mine had the PlayCable so on the first of every month, we’d find out what new games were added and get upset if any of our favorites had been deleted. At the time it seemed like a really cool concept from the user’s perspective but behind the scenes it wasn’t working as well.
The take up of PlayCable never ended up being what was expected. The box limited the addition of future games that were quickly increasing in memory. Cable operators also had to purchase expensive computers to handle the system and deliver the games to customers. So it died a quick death after only several years.
My Thoughts
Intellivision remains my favorite home video game system I’ve ever seen and used. I admit that part of my love for it is that it was the first thing in my life that I ever really wanted but didn’t get until later in life as an adult. As a kid I generally didn’t ask my parents for something expensive like this more than once given the high price tag. I wasn’t the type of kid to ask repeatedly or have a temper tantrum or things of that nature to get what I wanted. I also saved my own money – I had a paper route from age 10 for about 5 years – but couldn’t get around to spending my own money on it.
At the time, buying a home video game system like Intellivision given the high price and the relative newness of video games wasn’t something my parents really thought about since they never played video games. So I never got it and ended up buying Colecovision as a teenager several years later as it was a newer more modern system at that point. But I still had feelings for Intellivision and ended up buying it from eBay as an adult years later.
As a kid, Intellivision had the best games, best graphics and best controllers in my opinion. I couldn’t imagine a video game exceeding its quality and awesomeness. The thought that something better could come along really wasn’t possible I thought. Every time they released a new game, I figured it was proof that it was the best game that could ever exist.
The video game crash of 1983 changed all of that of course and we’ll talk about that next.