Mattel Electronics
Moby ID: 463
Trivia add
To promote the Intellivision console, and attack Atari, the company produced a series of ads starring actor and journalist George Plimpton.
Contributed by Sciere.
Besides producing several dozen original video games for the Atari 2600 (under the name "M-Networks"), the Mattel toy company was also responsible for producing and marketing their own very successful video game system, the "Intellivision."
The Intellivision hit the national market in 1980 for the somewhat steeper cost of $299. Atari originally released their historic "Atari 2600" console in 1978 for $199. The marketing for the Intellivision was very successful, however, and proved to be a strong competitive threat to Atari. The Intellivision was unmistakably superior to the Atari 2600 in many ways, however, and sold over 175,000 units during their first year of production.
They had a short run of success, and closed the doors on their Intellivision division in 1984. It was the first victim of the Video Game market crash that occurred during the latter part of 1983 and early 1984.
Contributed by SirOrlando.
The original five members of the Intellivision in-house software development group: Gabriel Baum, Don Daglow, Rick Levine, Mike Minkoff and John Sohl, were referred to as the Blue Sky Rangers. To keep these and later programmers from being hired away by rival Atari, their identity and work location was kept a closely guarded secret.
Contributed by Sciere.