In a new post on Twitter/X today, Atari announced that it has officially acquired the Intellivision “brand and game library.”
Atari CEO Wade Rosen added that the acquisition is a “rare opportunity to unite former competitors.” Rosen also says it can “bring together fans of the golden age of gaming.” Intellivision will rebrand, but it will still continue distributing the Amico console.
In a wide press release, Atari elaborated on the acquisition. Atari plans to “expand digital and physical distribution of legacy Intellivision games” and “potentially create new games.”
Fans will likely recognize Intellivision for its classic arcade titles, such as the home port of BurgerTime. Notably, Atari only purchased “certain games,” and did not identify the titles involved.
Atari will surely reveal more soon, since the purchase included rights to over 200 titles. It is also already selling merchandise with Intellivision T-shirts.
In today’s press release, Atari also confirmed it will “explore brand and licensing opportunities.”
Intellivision Entertainment CEO Phil Adam expressed trust in Atari regarding its brand. Adam also said that Intellivision looks forward to an “expanded collaboration,” including “a broad array of new Atari and Intellivision titles.”
Late last April, Atari also decided to revive Infogrames as a publishing label. The move intends to gain IP and publish games outside of Atari’s core portfolio of games. Accordingly, Infogrames even purchased Totally Reliable Delivery Services from tinyBuild.
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This seems like a waste of money and honestly just desperate by the Amico people since they need money. Atari should have went after Ziggurat or Interplay their libraries are better.
Several things most people are missing with this purchase. First, It gets rid of a possible competitor with a brand name even though AMICO tainted it somewhat. Second, it could generate cash just from licensing the titles to 3rd party hardware companies. Third, Atari owns a comfortable stake in AntStream and with titles being dropped from that platform and added monthly, Atari may use this clout for better gaming fees. Forth, Digital Eclipse was already working with Intellivision on 4 products that were completed and placed on hold for the Amico…, I bet they will be on the VCS and steam soon. Fifth there are still many Intellivision users and developers, this will bring them to Atari. Sixth, Moby Games is a site Atati owns and by these licenses being in one place it is much easier to catalog them and possibly create a ROM store on Moby Games. If the price was low, this was a great buy. Then there is merchandising deals and even the Atari Game show in production that could use these 200+ games to profit from. My only question is: Did Atari also receive the several hardware designs. On a side note, this also helps Atari owned AtariAge. They distribute games, own games and have dedicated followers. I can see lots of ports and less lawsuits because of IP.
Sidenote as Zigguart purchase I believe will happen in the next 12 months. Zigguart owns several former Atari games they purchased long ago, plus Wade worked for them and with them and knows the team and they both share the same vision. Recreation, Restoration, IP cataloging and properly using the IP in merchandising. I also see Atari buying BBG for the last 2 intellivision titles they sent share now, Tommo to gain full Retrovision ownership and other titles they still own of Atari, Colecovision and possibly Colecovision IP. This actually starts to make plenty of sense.
What’s the situation with Earthworm Jim 4? Does that continue l, does it move to Atari, is it cancelled? That game has been in the dark for way too long hopefully Atari takes it just give it to WayForward to make.
They should have bought Duke Nukem from Embracer a few years ago