Intellivision

Compiled by bigladiesman

Background: The Mattel Intellivision (known as Mattel Electronics) was the first big competitor of the Atari 2600 in the second generation console market. Created in 1978 (and released in 1979, initially to just southern California), its production lasted until 1990 and sold 3 million units, with a collection of 125 games.

(December 3, 1979-1990)

Nicknames: "Mattel Electronics Presents...", "BAY SEVENTAYN BAAAWLMER", "Eight Lil' Sticks"

Logo: On an army green background, we see, in white, the blocky text:

''Intellivision presents

[Title of the game]

Copyright @ 19XX''

or:

''Mattel Electronics presents

[Title of the game]

Copr @ 19XX Mattel''

Above the text, we see eight multi-colored rectangles in this sequence: white, yellow, light green, dark green, pale pink, red, blue, and black.

Variants: This start up screen showed many variations: The most common one was the adding of some additional text, generally referring to copyright about licensed products. Some start up screens would show up with different background colors, such as light blue (on Shark! Shark!, with letters in black) or black (on Kool-Aid Man, with letters in yellow and blue). On some games like Vectron, the font is different.

FX/SFX: None.

Music/Sounds: Mostly silent, but games like Loco-Motion have musical cues. When the voice synthesizer Intellivoice was attached to the console, a synthesized voice would say "Mattel Electronic presents [game title]" (on B-17 Bomber and Bomb Squad, for instance).

Availability: You won't believe it, but fairly common, as the company which currently handles the rights of the console - formed exclusively by former Mattel programmers - and its games, have been working hard to preserve the legacy of Intellivision. Many compilations, including Intellivision Lives!, and ports to later consoles have this logo intact.

Editor's Note: The quality of the audio from the Intellivoice attachment is so bad that it's humorous. In fact, the audio of "B-17 Bomber" and "Bomb Squad" even became memes after being showcased in the Angry Video Game Nerd double-feature episode "Double Vision".