The Beginning

The Mattel Intellivision is a home video game console that was released by Mattel Electronics nationwide in 1979. It distinguished itself from competitors with a unique pad controller instead of a joystick and had more realistic sports and strategic games. By 1981, Mattel Electronics had close to 20% of the domestic video game market, selling more than 3.75 million consoles and 20 million cartridges through 1983. At its peak Mattel Electronics had about 1800 employees in several countries, including 110 videogame developers. 

The Intellivision was developed at Mattel in Hawthorne, California. By 1969, multiple research and development groups came together as the Preliminary Design department on the third floor of the head office. Mattel had a history with technology R&D as design engineer Jack Ryan, who joined the company in 1955 from Raytheon, led a group of engineers, chemists, sculptors. With a large budget they were expected to be forward thinking, dubbed the blue-sky group.

In 1975, mechanical engineer Richard Chang, a director under Ryan, contacted MOS Technology for a demonstration of their new 6502 microprocessor in a video game application. MOS arranged for their client Glenn Hightower of APh Technological Consulting and teacher at CalTech University to do the demonstration. Shortly after, Dave James, an industrial engineer under Chang, wrote a memo dated January 26, 1976, documenting two product concepts. First, a microprocessor programmed video system with "plug-in" ROM modules or cassettes, and a list of applications that include war games, gambling games, strategy and board games, video Etch-a-Sketch, driving simulator, pinball; and football with 10 player a side, defense/offense patterns and floating field background. Second, calculator-based games. With Mattel executives skeptical, Chang's group moved forward with handheld electronic games enlisting Hightower's help with a prototype.

Mattel hired Michael Katz as Marketing Manager for New Product Categories in 1975, Katz asked Chang to prototype a calculator sized electronic game for 1976. In Fall 1976, Mattel hired Ed Krakauer as Vice President of New Business Development, who hired Jeff Rochlis as Director of New Business Development. In an October 1977 newspaper article, Rochlis was quoted saying, "Basically these things are fore runners of the home computer. There's a logical transition involved. One way to get into the home-computer market is to sell games."

Development

In April 1977, David Chandler, with a doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering, a career in Aerospace, also having prototyped an early word processor as well as an arcade video game, joined Preliminary Design under Chang. Chandler shared Chang's vision for a video game system with rich graphics and long-lasting gameplay to distinguish itself from its competitors and took over responsibility for its engineering. Prior to Chandler’s arrival, Chang's group had already met with National Semiconductor about their new, although expensive, chip set. Chandler negotiated better pricing for a simpler design. At the Consumer Electronics Show in June 1977, Chandler saw two more chipsets. One from MOS Technology lacked moving objects. The other from General Instrument, listed as the Gimini programmable set in the GI 1977 catalog. The GI chipset lacked programmable graphics and Mattel worked with GI to implement changes. GI published an updated chipset in its 1978 catalog. Mattel initially chose National Semiconductor, who advised Mattel to postpone the project, turning them to GI. Mattel corporate management reacted by putting a halt to video game development for several months. On November 9, 1977, Mattel, GI, and Magnavox (their initial contract manufacturer) met to plan contracts and production.

With the 1977 success of their Mattel Electronics branded handheld electronic games, Mattel Electronics became a division within the company, with separate marketing, finance, and engineering. In September, Krakauer made Rochlis its president. Chang, becoming director of its new Design and Development department, responsible for Intellivision software. Chandler, became director of Product Engineering led a team engineering the hardware, including the hand controllers. In 1978, David Rolfe of APh developed the onboard executive control software named Exec, and with a group of Caltech summer student employees programmed the first Intellivision games. Hal Finney of APh contributed sound and music processing routines to the Exec. Graphics were designed by a group of artists at Mattel led by Dave James. James also creating detailed game proposal documents.

During June 1978 CES, Mattel privately showed a prototype to retailers, leading to a Christmas release. Delays at GI pushed that into 1979. Magnavox backed out as manufacturer, replaced with Sylvania. Chandler considered replacing the GI chipset and working with Texas Instruments and their new TMS9918 video processor. The TI chip had more moving objects but half the number on a horizontal line compared with the GI STIC, it also lacked hardware scrolling that the GI STIC provides. Further, the TI chip requires more RAM and software already developed would have to be reworked. The system was named the Intellivision, as a portmanteau of "intelligent television".

Console Launch

The Intellivision was introduced at the 1979 Las Vegas CES in January as a modular home computer with the Master Component priced at US$165 and a soon-to-follow Keyboard Component also at $165 (equivalent to $690 in 2023). At Chicago CES in June, prices were revised to $250 for each component. A shortage of key chips from manufacturer General Instrument resulted in a limited number of Intellivision Master Components produced that year. In Fall 1979, Sylvania marketed its own branded Intellivision at $280 in its GTE stores at Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. On December 3, Mattel delivered consoles to the Gottschalks department store chain headquartered in Fresno, California, with a suggested list price of $275. The Intellivision was also listed in the nationally distributed JCPenney Christmas 1979 catalog along with seven cartridges. By April 1980, markets expanded to Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago. It was in stores nationwide by mid-1980 with the pack-in game Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack and a library of ten cartridges.

By September 1980, there was internal debate about the effectiveness of marketing the Intellivision as a home computer and the direction of Mattel Electronics questioned. Krakauer and Rochlis resigned, and Josh Denham became the new president of Mattel Electronics. The Keyboard Component was no longer promoted in advertising. A series of advertisements starring George Plimpton used side-by-side game comparisons to demonstrate the superior graphics and sound of Intellivision over the Atari 2600. One slogan called Intellivision "the closest thing to the real thing". One such example compared golf games; where the 2600's games had a blip sound and cruder graphics, the Intellivision featured a realistic swing sound and striking of the ball and a more 3D look. In 1980, Mattel sold out its 190,000 stock of Intellivision Master Components, along with one million cartridges. In 1981, more than one million Intellivision consoles were sold, more than five times the amount of the previous year. Mattel Electronics became a subsidiary and relocated to another building to accommodate their growth. In 1982, they reportedly sold 1.8 million Intellivision consoles.

The Intellivision Master Component was branded and distributed by various companies. Before Mattel shifted manufacturing to Hong Kong, Mattel Intellivision consoles were manufactured by GTE Sylvania.GTE Sylvania Intellivision consoles were produced along with Mattel's, differing only by the brand name. The Sears Super Video Arcade, manufactured by Mattel in Hong Kong, has a restyled beige top cover and detachable controllers. Its default title screen lacks the "Mattel Electronics" captioning. In 1982, Radio Shack marketed the Tandyvision One,similar to the original console but with the gold plates replaced with more wood trim. In Japan, Intellivision consoles were branded for Bandai in 1982, and in Brazil there were Digimed and Digiplay consoles manufactured by Sharp in 1983.

Hardware

Inside every Intellivision console is 4K of ROM containing the Exec software. It provides two benefits: reusable code that can effectively make a 4K cartridge an 8K game and a software framework for new programmers to develop games more easily and quickly. It also allows other programmers to more easily review and continue another's project. Under the supervision of David Rolfe at APh, and with graphics from Mattel artist Dave James, APh was able to quickly create the Intellivision launch game library using mostly summer students. The drawback is that to be flexible and handle many different types of games, the Exec runs less efficiently than a dedicated program. Intellivision games that leverage the Exec run at a 20 Hz frame rate instead of the 60 Hz frame rate for which the Intellivision was designed. Using the Exec framework is optional, but almost all Intellivision games released by Mattel Electronics use it and thus run at 20 Hz. The limited ROM space in the early years of Intellivision game releases also means there is no space for a computer player, so many early multiplayer games require two human players.

Game Development

Initially, all Intellivision games were programmed by an outside firm, APh Technological Consulting, with 19 cartridges produced before Christmas 1980. Once the Intellivision project became successful, software development was brought in-house. Mattel formed its own software development group and began hiring programmers. The original five members of that Intellivision team were Mike Minkoff, Rick Levine, John Sohl, Don Daglow, and manager Gabriel Baum. Levine and Minkoff, a long-time Mattel Toys veteran, both transferred from the hand-held Mattel game engineering team. During 1981, Mattel hired programmers as fast as possible. Early in 1982 Mattel Electronics relocated from Mattel headquarters to an unused industrial building. Offices were renovated as new staff moved in. To keep these programmers from being hired away by rival Atari, their identities and work location was kept a closely guarded secret. In public, the programmers were referred to collectively as the Blue Sky Rangers.

Most of the early games are based on traditional real-world concepts such as sports, with an emphasis on realism and depth of play within the technology of the time. The Intellivision was not marketed as a toy; as such, games such as Sea Battle and B-17 Bomber are not made in the pick-up-and-play format like arcade games. Reading the instructions is often a prerequisite. Every cartridge produced by Mattel Electronics includes two plastic controller overlays to help navigate the 12-button keypad, although not every game uses it. Game series, or networks, are Major League Sports, Action, Strategy, Gaming, Children's Learning, and later Space Action and Arcade. The network concept was dropped in 1983, as was the convenient gatefold-style box for storing the cartridge, instructions, and overlays.

Starting in 1981, programmers looking for credit and royalties on sales began leaving both APh and Mattel Electronics to create Intellivision cartridges for third-party publishers. They helped form Imagic in 1981, and in 1982 others joined Activision and Atari. Cheshire Engineering was formed by a few senior APh programmers including David Rolfe, author of the Exec, and Tom Loughry, creator of one of the most popular Intellivision games, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Cheshire created Intellivision games for Activision. Third-party developers Activision, Imagic, and Coleco started producing Intellivision cartridges in 1982, and Atari, Parker Brothers, Sega, and Interphase followed in 1983. The third-party developers, not having legal access to Exec knowledge, often bypassed the Exec framework to create smooth 30 Hz and 60 Hz Intellivision games such as The Dreadnaught Factor. Cheaper ROM prices also allowed for progressively larger games as 8K, 12K, and 16K cartridges became common. The first Mattel Electronics Intellivision game to run at 60 Hz was Masters of the Universe in 1983. Marketing dubbed the term "Super Graphics" on the game's packaging and marketing.

Mattel Electronics had a competitive advantage in its team of experienced and talented programmers. As competitors often depended on licensing well known trademarks to sell video games, Mattel focused on original ideas. Don Daglow was a key early programmer at Mattel and became director of Intellivision game development. Daglow created Utopia, a precursor to the sim genre and, with Eddie Dombrower, the ground-breaking sports simulation World Series Major League Baseball. Daglow was also involved with the popular Intellivision games Tron Deadly Discs and Shark! Shark!. After Mattel Electronics closed in 1984, its programmers continued to make significant contributions to the videogame industry. Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower went on to Electronic Arts to create Earl Weaver Baseball, and Don Daglow founded Stormfront Studios. Bill Fisher, Steve Roney, and Mike Breen founded Quicksilver Software, and David Warhol founded Realtime Associates.

The Intellivision was designed as a modular home computer; so, from the beginning, its packaging, promotional materials, and television commercials promised the addition of a forthcoming accessory called the Keyboard Component. The Master Component was packaged as a stand-alone video game system to which the Keyboard Component could be added, providing the computer keyboard and tape drive. Not meant to be a hobbyist or business computer, the Intellivision home computer was meant to run pre-programmed software and bring "data flow" (Videotex) into the home.

The Keyboard Component adds an 8-bit 6502 processor, making the Intellivision a dual-processor computer. It has 16K 10-bit shared RAM that can load and execute both Intellivision CP1610 and 6502 program code from tape, which is a large amount as typical contemporary cartridges are 4K. The cassettes have two tracks of digital data and two tracks of analog audio, completely controlled by the computer. Two tracks are read-only for the software, and two tracks are for user data. The tape drive is block addressed with high-speed indexing. A high-resolution 40×24 monochrome text display can overlay regular Intellivision graphics. There is a microphone port and two expansion ports for peripherals and RAM. The Microsoft BASIC programming cartridge uses one of these ports. Expanded memory cartridges support 1,000 pages of 8 KB each. A third pass-through cartridge port is for regular Intellivision cartridges. It uses the Intellivision's power supply.

David Rolfe of APh wrote a control program for the Keyboard Component called PicSe (Picture Sequencer) specifically for the development of multimedia applications. PicSe synchronizes the graphics and analog audio while concurrently saving or loading tape data. Productivity software for home finances, personal improvement, and self-education were planned. Subject experts were consulted and their voices recorded and used in the software. Only two applications using the PicSe system were released on cassette tape: Conversational French and Jack Lalanne's Physical Conditioning. Cassettes in development include Super Football, Spelling Challenge, Chartcraft Stock Analysis, and Jeanne Dixon Astrology.

Programs written in BASIC do not have access to Intellivision graphics and were sold at a lower price. Five BASIC applications were released on tape: Family Budgeting, Geography Challenge, and Crosswords I, II, and III.

The Keyboard Component was an ambitious piece of engineering for its time, and it was repeatedly delayed as engineers tried to reduce manufacturing costs. In August 1979, a breadboard form of the Component was successfully entered into the Sears Market Research Program. In December 1979, Mattel had production design working units but decided on a significant internal design change to consolidate circuit boards. In September 1980, it was test marketed in Fresno, California, but without software, except for the BASIC programming cartridge. In late 1981, design changes were finally implemented, and the Keyboard Component was released at $600 (equivalent to $2,010 in 2023) in Seattle and New Orleans only. Customers who complained in writing could buy a Keyboard Component directly from Mattel. The printer, a rebadged Alphacom Sprinter 40, was only available by mail order.

The Keyboard Component's repeated delays became so notorious around Mattel headquarters that comedian Jay Leno, when performing at Mattel's 1981 Christmas party, got his biggest response of the evening with the line: "You know what the three big lies are, don't you? 'The check is in the mail', 'I'll still respect you in the morning', and 'The keyboard will be out in spring.'"

Complaints from consumers who had chosen to buy the Intellivision specifically on the promise of a "coming soon" personal-computer upgrade eventually caught the attention of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), who started investigating Mattel Electronics for fraud and false advertising. Mattel explained to the FTC that the Keyboard Component was a failed product, avoiding fines. Mattel subsequently cancelled the product in August 1982 and offered to buy back all of the existing Keyboard Components from customers. Mattel provided a full refund, but customers without a receipt received $550 for the Keyboard Component, $60 for the BASIC cartridge, and $30 for each cassette software. Any customer who opted to keep the products was required to sign a waiver with the understanding that no more software would be written for the system and absolving Mattel of any future responsibility for technical support. They were also compensated with $1,000 worth of Mattel Electronics products.

Though approximately 4,000 Keyboard Components were manufactured, it is not clear how many of them were sold and they are rare. Many of the units were dismantled for parts. Others were used by Mattel Electronics programmers as part of their development system. A Keyboard Component could be interfaced with an Intellivision development system in place of the hand-built Magus board RAM cartridge. Data transfer to the Keyboard Component RAM is done serially and is slower than the Magus board parallel interface.

Entertainment Computer System

In mid-1981, Mattel's upper management was becoming concerned that the Keyboard Component group would never be able to produce a sellable product. As a result, Design and Development set up a competing engineering team whose stated mission was to produce an inexpensive add-on called the "Basic Development System", or BDS, to be sold as an educational device to introduce kids to the concepts of computer programming.

The rival BDS engineering group eventually came up with a much less expensive alternative. Originally dubbed the "Lucky", from LUCKI: Low User-Cost Keyboard Interface, it lacked many of the sophisticated features envisioned for the original Keyboard Component. Gone, for example, was the 16K (8MB max) of RAM, the secondary CPU, and high-resolution text; instead, the ECS offered a mere 2KB RAM expansion, a built-in BASIC that was marginally functional, plus a much-simplified cassette and printer interface. Ultimately, this fulfilled the original promise of turning the Intellivision into a computer, making it possible to write programs and store them to tape as well as interfacing with a printer. It even offered, via an additional sound chip (AY-3-8917) inside the ECS module and an optional 49-key music synthesizer keyboard, the possibility of turning the Intellivision into a multi-voice synthesizer which could be used to play or learn music.

In the fall of 1982, the LUCKI, now renamed the Entertainment Computer System (ECS), was presented at the annual sales meeting, officially ending the ill-fated keyboard component project. A new advertising campaign was aired in time for the 1982 Christmas season, and the ECS itself was shown to the public at the January 1983 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. However, it would not see release until late December as the Intellivision Computer Module.

Prior to release, an internal shake-up at the top levels of Mattel Electronics' management had caused the company's focus to shift away from hardware add-ons in favor of software, and the ECS received very little in terms of furthering the marketing push. Further hardware developments, including a planned Program Expander that would have added another 16K of RAM and a more intricate, fully featured Extended-BASIC to the system, were halted. In the end, six games were released for the ECS; a few more were completed but not released.

The ECS Computer Module also offered four player gameplay with the optional addition of two extra hand controllers. Four player games were in development when Mattel Electronics closed in 1984. World Cup Soccer was later completed and released in 1985 by Dextel in Europe and then INTV Corporation in North America. The documentation does not mention it but when the ECS Computer Adapter is used, World Cup Soccer can be played with one to four players, or two players cooperatively against the computer.

Intellivoice

In 1982, Mattel introduced the Intellivoice Voice Synthesis Module, a speech synthesizer for compatible cartridges. The Intellivoice was novel in two respects: human sounding male and female voices with distinct accents, and speech-supporting games designed with speech as an integral part of the gameplay.

Like the Intellivision chipset, the Intellivoice chipset was developed by General Instrument. The SP0256-012 orator chip has 2KB ROM inside and is used to store the speech for numerical digits, some common words, and the phrase "Mattel Electronics presents". Speech can also be processed from the Intellivoice's SP650 buffer chip, stored and loaded from cartridge memory. That buffer chip has its own I/O and the Intellivoice has a 30-pin expansion port under a removable top plate. Mattel Electronics planned to use that connector for wireless hand controllers.

Mattel Electronics built a state-of-the-art voice processing lab to produce the phrases used in Intellivoice games. However, the amount of speech that could be compressed into an 8K or 12K cartridge and still leave room for a game was limited. Intellivoice cartridges Space Spartans and B-17 Bomber did sell about 300,000 copies each, priced a few dollars more than regular Intellivision cartridges. However, at $79, the Intellivoice did not sell as well as Mattel expected; Intellivoices were later offered free with the purchase of a Master Component. In August 1983, the Intellivoice system was quietly phased out. A children's title called Magic Carousel and foreign-language versions of Space Spartans were completed but shelved. Additional games Woody Woodpecker and Space Shuttle went unfinished with the voice recordings unused.

Four Intellivoice games were released: Space Spartans, B-17 Bomber, Bomb Squad, and Tron: Solar Sailer.

A fifth game, Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, developed as part of the Entertainment Computer System series, also supports the Intellivoice if both the ECS and Intellivoice are connected concurrently. Unlike the Intellivoice-specific games, however, World Series Major League Baseball is also playable without the Intellivoice module (but not without the ECS).

Intellivision II

In the spring of 1983, Mattel introduced the Intellivision II, a cheaper, more compact redesign of the original, that was designed to be less expensive to manufacture and service, with updated styling. It also had longer controller cords. The Intellivision II was initially released without a pack-in game but was later packaged with Burger Time in the United States and Lock 'N' Chase in Canada. In 1984, the Digiplay Intellivision II was introduced in Brazil. Brazil was the only country outside North America to have the redesigned Intellivision II.

Using an external AC Adapter (16.2V AC), consolidating some ICs, and taking advantage of relaxed FCC emission standards, the Intellivision II has a significantly smaller footprint than the original. The controllers, now detachable, have a different feel, with plastic rather than rubber side buttons and a flat membrane keypad. Users of the original Intellivision missed the ability to find keypad buttons by the tactile feel of the original controller bubble keypad.

One functional difference was the addition of a video input to the cartridge port, added specifically to support the System Changer, an accessory also released in 1983 by Mattel that played Atari 2600 cartridges through the Intellivision. The Intellivision hand controllers could be used to play Atari 2600 games. The System Changer also had two controller ports compatible with Atari joysticks. The original Intellivision required a hardware modification, a service provided by Mattel, to work with the System Changer. Otherwise, the Intellivision II was promoted to be compatible with the original.

It was discovered that a few Coleco Intellivision games did not work on the Intellivision II. Mattel secretly changed the Exec internal ROM program in an attempt to lock out third-party games. A few of Coleco's early games were affected but the 3rd party developers quickly figured out how to get around it. Mattel's own Electric Company Word Fun, however, will not run on the Intellivision II due to this change. In an unrelated issue but also due to Exec changes, Super Pro Football experiences a minor glitch where the quarterback does not appear until after the ball is hiked. There were also some minor changes to the sound chip (AY-3-8914A/AY-3-8916) affecting sound effects in some games. Programmers at Mattel discovered the audio differences and avoided the problem in future games.

As early as 1981, Dave Chandler's group began designing what would have been Mattel's next-generation console, codenamed Decade and now referred to as the Intellivision IV. It would have been based on the 32-bit MC68000 processor and a 16-bit custom designed advanced graphic interface chip. Specifications called for dual-display support, 240×192 bitmap resolution, 16 programmable 12-bit colors (4096 colors), antialiasing, 40×24 tiled graphics modes, four colors per tile (16 with shading), text layer and independent scrolling, 16 multicolored 16×16 sprites per scan-line, 32 level hardware sprite scaling. Line interrupts for reprogramming sprite and color registers would allow for many more sprites and colors on screen at the same time. It was intended as a machine that could lead Mattel Electronics into the 1990s; however, on August 4, 1983, most hardware people at Mattel Electronics were laid off.

Also in 1981, Mattel Electronics executives indicated to APh, interest in a successor system for 1983. Although planned for some time, APh redirected staff efforts on the Intellivision III hardware around summer 1982. Based on a faster CP1610 for backward compatibility, APh developed an updated graphics STIC chip with 4x the resolution, more sprites, and more colors. Mattel Electronics programmers developing the EXEC software. When Mattel Electronics cancelled the project in mid-1983, Toshiba was laying out the new graphics chip, consoles expected to be in production by Christmas, cartridges to be ready by January 1984, according to Glenn Hightower of APh. A Mattel document titled Target Specification Intellivision III has the following.

• CPU: CP1610-2 at 3.56 MHz (2x original CPU speed)
• separate 16-bit data bus and address bus
• multiplexed data/address mode for backward compatibility with existing cartridges
• Graphics: STIC 1B
• tiled graphics, 20 cards by 24 rows
  • 2-color 16×8 pixel cards for a resolution of 320×192
  • 4-color 8×8 pixel cards for a resolution of 160×192
• 40 x 24 alphanumerics
• 16 programmable colors
  • color palette selectable per card
  • 12-bit RGB definition for 4096 possible colors
• 8 sprites per scanline
  • reusable on different scanlines
  • 16 pixels wide in 1 color, 8 pixels wide in 3 colors
  • up-to 255 lines high
  • overlap detect of individual colors
• fine pixel horizontal and vertical scrolling (backward compatible)
• single data bus allows graphics ROM/RAM storage on cartridges
• STIC 1 backwards-compatible mode
• RAM: 4K words, 16-bit, DRAM (upgradable to 65K words)
• five channel sound with improved frequency range (backward compatible)
• integrated Intellivoice

According to the company's 1982 Form 10-K, Mattel had almost 20% of the domestic video-game market. Mattel Electronics provided 25% of revenue and 50% of operating income in fiscal 1982. Although the Atari 2600 had more third-party development, Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games reported after visiting the summer 1982 Consumer Electronics Show that "the momentum is tremendous". Activision and Imagic began releasing games for the Intellivision, as did hardware rival Coleco. Mattel created "M Network" branded games for Atari's system. The company's advertisement budget increased to over $20 million for the year. In its October 1982 stockholders' report Mattel announced that Electronics had, so far that year, posted a nearly $100 million profit on nearly $500 million sales: a threefold increase over October 1981.

However, the same report predicted a loss for the upcoming quarter. Hiring still continued, as did the company's optimism that the investment in software and hardware development would pay off. The M Network brand expanded to personal computers. An office in Taiwan was opened to handle Apple II programming. The original five-person Mattel game development team had grown to 110 people under new vice president Baum, while Daglow led Intellivision development and top engineer Minkoff directed all work on all other platforms. In February 1983, Mattel Electronics opened an office in the south of France to provide European input to Intellivision games and develop games for the ColecoVision. At its peak Mattel Electronics employed 1800 people.

Amid the flurry of new hardware and software development, there was trouble for the Intellivision. New game systems (ColecoVision and Atari 5200) introduced in 1982 took advantage of falling RAM prices to offer graphics closer to arcade quality. In 1983, the price of home computers, particularly the Commodore 64, came down drastically to compete with video game system sales. The market became flooded with hardware and software, and retailers were ill-equipped to cope. In spring 1983, hiring at Mattel Electronics came to a halt.

At the June 1983 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Mattel Electronics had the opportunity to show off all their new products. The response was underwhelming. Several people in top management positions were replaced due to massive losses. On July 12, 1983, Mattel Electronics President Josh Denham was replaced with outsider Mack Morris. Morris brought in former Mattel Electronics president and marketing director Jeff Rochlis as a consultant and all projects were under review. The Intellivision III was cancelled and then all new hardware development was stopped when 660 jobs were cut on August 4. The price of the Intellivision II (which launched at $150 earlier that year) was lowered to $69, and Mattel Electronics was to be a software company. However, by October 1983, Electronics' losses were over $280 million for the year and one third of the programming staff were laid off. Another third was gone by November, and, on January 20, 1984, the remaining programming staff were laid off. The Taiwan and French offices continued a little while longer due to contract and legal obligations. On February 4, 1984, Mattel sold the Intellivision business for $20 million. In 1983, 750,000 Intellivision Master Components were sold, compared to 1.8 million in 1982.

The End

In 1984, Mattel sold its video game assets to a former Mattel Electronics executive and investors, eventually becoming INTV Corporation. Game development ran from 1978 to 1990, when the Intellivision was discontinued. Throughout the mid to late 1980'snumerous retail outlets continued selling Intellivision consoles and games, mostly at a discounted MSRP. Other methods of sales continued with catalogs and even Time Share incentives. Manufacture and distributers eventually sold tons of stock to various bulk discounters and to the now infamous Venezuela where house hoard that is still offloading to this day.