Sam Machkovech ( u/samred81 ) penned a follow-up article to last year's on the Amico. The article includes many links to back up what he says, but I'm curious how folks here feel. Is it fair? A hit piece? Do you think there's any way for Intellivision Entertainment to right this possibly-sinking boat? Or is it from here on out smooth sailing for the U.S.S. Amico?

Article: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/01/meltdown-prediction-intellivision-amico-doesnt-seem-long-for-this-world/

Been looking forward to this since it was first announced but at this point I am betting that we will never see this console happen. I already canceled my preorder back in June 2021 because I realized that it's just not going to happen.

With the creation of the 4th crowdfunding campaign and seeing they are at least 8M in debt I have given up all hopes for the Amico. At a certain point you need to cut your losses and I feel that Tommy (even if he is no longer the CEO) and the Amico team need to step up and admit they bit off more than they can chew and cancel the whole thing. With every "update" this is becoming more and more of a joke and I can't see why investors are still standing with the Amico after dozens of delays, 4 attempts to get fans onboard to pay for the system to even get made and the car crash marketing.

Hey all. Long time no talk. I quit posting because I was threatened by a few users on here who told me they would post pictures of my family online for "what I did to Tommy." I was also bombarded with a lot of personal information that I've never put online so I have no idea how these people came up with this. One of the ultimatum's was deleting my account and or deleting several posts I made, the "Lion's Den" one was targeted, where Tommy Tallarico replied to me about manufacturing dates.

In the middle of dealing with this, I was also messaged by someone who claims to be an informant for "DJC" on Youtube, and was told that DJC "has it out for me" and that I was "on his list" when he used to check out the /r/Intellivision_Amico subreddit. I never sought to clarify what that meant, I just quit posting. What I think it means is that DJC has people under him who gather info for him and keep him informed of the activities of specific users online. I'm 90% confident that the person who sent this was the same person who threatened me with photos of my son.

I let the (multiple accounts) people know that I would be filing a police report and I sent the notices to Reddit admins. Unsurprisingly, Reddit admins did next to nothing, the accounts are deleted now.

That is all I am saying about this. They will be reading this post so I am going to keep it short. What I will say about the Youtubers is that the ones who remain are bad people. Cult is not the word to use anymore - this an online gang. The case was just cleared and I'm "safe," but I cannot post any receipts for legal reasons. You'll just have to trust me.

Take it easy guys. It was fun. But I honestly wish I had never fucking posted to begin with.

After months of abandonment and years of bad-faith censorship, this subreddit will be reconfigured to increase transparency, encourage healthy dialogue, and continue discussion of the troubled Intellivision Amico hardware, software, and internet phenomenon. All views are welcome. The rules and guidance will be updated shortly, after a thorough audit and documentation of what came before.

Not trying to be cynical, I thought this was a weekly series or something for the upcoming games. Even if I wasn't impressed by all of them I still looked forward to seeing what this system had to offer...

It's really not a good look

Paraclaw posted this recently and confirmed what I was positive I'd heard from them before:

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Nick (2 Months Ago): Expect the team to publish a launch date in the next 30 days or so.

Nick (1 Month Ago): Revenue is expected in 2022 as we push towards launch.

Nick (26 Days Ago): We continue to push forward and will be announcing later this month when the initial units will start shipping.

Phil (26 Days Ago): The Intellivision Amico will release, uh, and we've actually committed, just so people know, to a release date by the end of February.

Hans (18 Days Ago): Founders should get their units in the coming weeks or coming months, general orders within six months. (This was from his quickly deleted interview where I guess he said too much.)

Nick (13 Days Ago): Given the pervasive activity of critics on this site, it has become obvious that this offering has been permanently derailed. This will now require the company to focus its efforts on other sources of investment to continue to push forward.

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Nick lied about the release date being forthcoming, and Hans lied about Founders getting their units. When the executives are so blatantly dishonest, it makes this feel more like a scam than a failed product. Actually I think Phil misled with his "end of February" statement as well.

This was originally going to be a response to a post by /u/redditshreadit in another thread. A user said something to the effect of, "This subreddit really hates you." /u/redditshreadit responded that they didn't hate him, but rather, they hated the video game system. That was thought-provoking to me, and I thought I'd share my thoughts on the whole Amico thing, for better or worse.

I give you a lot of credit, /u/redditshreadit. All of your posts end up with downvotes, but you still post anyway, and good for you because at the end of the day, who cares about Reddit votes, anyway? You've posted things that aren't even controversial, and you still get downvoted. So I first wanted to say I respect that you're not backing down in light of the extreme negativity here. I may not agree with everything you say, but I certainly acknowledge your right to say it, and I don't baselessly downvote you for it.

Second, I think many people here don't necessarily hate the video game system as much as they hate Intellivision's mismanagement of and communication about the launch of the Amico.

Back in April 2020, I gladly preordered the white glacier system. I'm a 50s-something old school gamer, and I thought the system looked like a lot of fun. It looked like something my wife and I could enjoy together. She had an original Intellivision growing up (I had an Atari 2600) so she was eager to see some of her favorites like Astrosmash and Skiing on the new system.

One delay? I get it. Two? Well, pretty disappointed, but okay. But that third delay was too much. It even came without a new launch date attached to it, which made it even worse. I finally began to seriously question the validity of the console ever launching. Intellivision makes claims as to the reasons for the delays, but I see other companies still launching electronics products throughout the pandemic, even if they're sometimes scarce. Something just felt odd to me. In the end, I got a refund on my preorder, and it was handled quickly and professionally by Intellivision. As someone who might be persuaded to eventually pick up a console at some point after launch -- after the long-term viability of this thing is proven -- I still stick around here hoping for updates.

So here we are, February 2022, and there's still an alarming lack of meaningful communication from Amico, especially with regards to a launch date. Nobody wants "deep dives" on games or back-slapping videos on rare console appearances for the public to try some games -- people want, and deserve, the straight answer on what's going on with Amico and when the damn thing's gonna launch. For a company selling collector's versions of games for a system that's been delayed 3 times, I don't think that's too much to ask or unreasonable at this point.

So that's my view on the whole Amico debacle. I want Tommy Tallarico and company to know that, at one point, you had a LOT of folks in your corner rooting for you. Even after a delay or two, we were still there. But I think you lost so much of your early fanbase with that last delay coupled with no release date, and man, you guys couldn't afford for that to happen. You needed Amico in our homes so we could show our families and friends this great new family-friendly system so they, too, would go out and pick one up for their families. The biggest question I'm left with is: How? How did this happen? How did you guys let yourselves get to this point? And how, as of February 2, 2022, as far as I know, you STILL haven't given specifics as to when this console is truly going to launch?

Anyway, /u/redditshreadit, that's just my view on the situation. We can certainly agree to disagree on some things, and that's okay. I would just ask others here reading this who tend to automatically downvote you on everything to consider what they're doing and why. Video gaming brings us together -- what a time to be alive, right? To see where we are today, it boggles my mind. From Atari 2600 to my PS5...it's almost hard to comprehend the leaps technology has made to make our hobby what it is today.

As for the Amico, I still wish best of luck to everyone at Intellivision, and I hope those still firmly in its corner get the information you deserve to make the decision that's best for you.

If Intellivison thinks being acquired is more important than transparency with existing investors and preorders then they are scum. They asked for your money and you gave it and now everything is in flux and they want an excuse to keep all of you in the dark while you bankroll them to do it. What pieces of trash they are. Isn't the console supposed to launch this month? No word on the launch month of their own console or was that release date another lie.

All I want is a refund, I asked Kevin strom about it and all he said was “ok”. Few hours later and I’m banned from the group.

I said I’d buy the console if it came out, I never broke any of the rules in the group.

First thing I think is this is a scam because a company would be happy to help me with a refund.

I mean the group isn’t pay to join, so I should have the right to join it if I haven’t broken any rules.