E3 2021 was notable for a number of reasons. It was the final E3, taking place in an entirely virtual online format and featuring press conferences from all the usual suspects like Ubisoft, Gearbox, and Microsoft, each presenting games that would help define the entertainment landscape in the years to come.
For most of us, however, it was all about the Amico.
Of all the E3 moments that have branded themselves upon our mind over the years the console reveals have always been the most impactful. The first E3 was defined by the famous exchange between Sega and Sony where the latter absolutely devastated its established competitor with a mere price announcement. E3 2004 and 2005 introduced the world to the Nintendo Revolution, a console that would truly redefine the video game market in the mid 2000s. Is it fitting to compare the announcement of the Amico to these titanic milestones in video game history?
Of course it is.
The Amico is an upcoming console that uses a unique and innovative controller combining motion controls and a touch screen to bring exciting casual 2D multiplayer games to people who don’t want to play them on their phones or other devices. E3 2021 was its coming out party.
The official E3 announcement of the Amico was groundbreaking in a lot of ways. For one thing it was an announcement of a console that had already been delayed beyond its original planned date, which is a new idea in the console space. But in many ways that delay was fortunate. It created the opportunity for one last big E3 announcement of a major competitor in the console space, perfectly mirroring the way that Sony had made its grand entrance with the PlayStation 26 years earlier. It was also the first console announcement made by a genuine celebrity, one Tommy Tallarico, a musician so famous that a retrospective of his career has reached over 12 million views on Youtube.
Mr. Tallarico explained to all the gamers watching E3 coverage for the latest and greatest that the Amico wasn’t actually for them, instead it was something that the non-gamers in their lives, like their moms, would like. This was an extremely innovative approach. Never before had a gamer audience been told “you won’t like this product but your mom might, so instead of asking her to get you the latest PlayStation for Christmas go suggest she get a video game system for herself.” This was the kind of blue sky marketing that could only come from a team with 600 years of experience crunching full bore for 20 hours a day in multiple luxury office locations. The real marketing had finally begun, and the response was overwhelming excitement.
Giant Bomb talked for 20 minutes about how exciting the Amico was, comparing its fun retro vibe to the certified classic Chevy Chase film Vegas Vacation, with Jeff Gerstmann expressing particular hope that Dolphin Quest would prove to be a standout title. Digital Foundry devoted multiple segments to exploring the cutting-edge tech driving the Amico and in general people seemed excited to get their hands on this thing and put it through its paces. Danny O’Dwyer said he’d happily order two of them!
Unfortunately, Danny never got his two systems because the Amico has yet to be released in physical form. The reasons for this are murky and probably relate to supply chain issues that nobody could have seen in mid-2021 at the beginning of the pandemic. It’s possible that the company was overwhelmed with orders and unable to source all the parts they’d need to ramp up production that much, but that’s just speculation.
What’s not just speculation is that the Amico team has continued their work on the project with the exact same level of dedication and focus they’ve always shown for making great games and rock-solid hardware. Even though founder and visionary Tommy Tallarico had to step back from the company due to personal matters and there have been other notable departures, the Amico machine has continued to churn out exactly as much high-quality content as it ever did. This is dedication and professionalism. This is Amico.
And while the Amico console itself has not been released yet there have been exciting events in Amicoland. The biggest news is probably a computer science breakthrough that may not be quite as revolutionary as AI but is in some ways more exciting. From the beginning of Amico we were told that the games for the system could only be played on its unique and groundbreaking controller. That is no longer the case. The madlads have broken the code and released Amico Home, a phone app where you can play games previously restricted to the Amico console in the convenience of your home using only two devices with independent apps, a wifi router so your devices can interact, and a credit or gift card to pay the $15 per game cost.
The second major change is the jettisoning of the musty old brand “Intellivision” from the sleek new superconsole. While Intellivision was a useful name to launch this new gaming empire, it is no longer needed and could potentially confuse the market. Amico sold the name and related IP to Atari, which is more focused on the retro market, so the Amico company could focus on forward looking projects like completing their port of a 2015 Evel Knievel phone game.
So what does this have to do with Summer Game Fest? It’s clear the Summer Game Fest is positioning itself as the new E3, and what better way to cement that than with a big E3 style console announcement? The Switch 2 is still too far off for its official reveal and the PlayStation 5 pro is not a big enough jump forward. Amico Home would have been perfect. It would have been an opportunity for Amico to refresh its branding, freed from the Intellivision name and the immediate need for a physical console, though that’s still coming. It would have been a chance for Summer Game Fest to show that like E3 before it, SGF is the new premier location for huge reveals and industry shaking news. Imagine being able to provide a world exclusive reveal of the console also revealed at the final E3, but now in phone app form. It would have been a huge attention grabber. SGF and Amico were a match made in heaven.
Why didn’t they do it? Amico probably thought it was too big for Summer Game Fest, and there’s maybe some truth to that. Nintendo does its own thing at the same time and Amico is definitely poised to overtake that company’s smut machine.
Its possible that Amico thought the timing wasn't right, seeing as they still don't have a publicly announced company name multiple weeks after having sold their prior name to Atari.
For its part SGF probably didn’t want to be overshadowed, and maybe they thought there was a bit of a curse around Amico because of its issues in the past and the fact that it was the last reveal before the old E3 shut down for good. But I can’t help thinking this was a huge missed opportunity for both parties. Hype and games go together like peanut butter and whatever goes well with peanut butter, maybe Marmite? I don’t know I haven’t looked into it. But they’re a great pairing, and if nothing else both Summer Game Fest and the Amico are video game products that are all about hype.
