The Intellivision Amico saga is not stopping anytime soon. The company, which sees developer and musician Tommy Tallarico (probably familiar to many for that one YouTube video than anything else) as the biggest shareholder, has released a smartphone app that will turn your device into an Amico console. Because, well, they hope to secure funds to produce the actual console.
The currently free app, available on public beta on Android, features two games, Astrosmash and Missile Command with more to come in the following months. It allows your phone to be connected to a TV to play games before the console arrives. Or well, if.
According to CEO Phil Adam, "the release of Amico Home puts us on a better footing to attract such investment or to eventually fund manufacturing from the proceeds of Amico Home game sales. We remain dedicated to moving Intellivision forward, step by step, until we can deliver on the full vision of Amico, including the consoles".
In case you haven't been keeping up, and we won't blame you if you haven't, the console was originally sold on Kickstarter, back in 2020, with many already having paid for preorders, but having received nothing. Following a leak on ArsTechnica of several reserved documents, uploaded without a password on the website, many started questioning the way of doing things at the company.
The new games looked already like old smartphone titles but priced like Switch titles, the marketing heavily relied on stock photos and the console even lacked the support for post-launch patches.
Former CEO Tommy Tallarico went into damage control after the piece was published, replying that "the Amico is not about fast processors, but about fun". Which might hopefully be the case, since the Amico uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.8 Ghz CPU, which was top of the market around five years ago. Tallarico was replaced by current CEO Phil Adam in February 2022.
While the saga goes on, it has become increasingly unlikely that the Amico will actually be released one day. At least, not in a physical version, as the recently released "Amico Home" might indicate.