A rare promotional video about the Mattel Intellivision master component and its Keyboard Component. This promo video was produced a year before the Intellivision Master Component was actually released, and features some things that didn't quite make it to market as depicted in this video. The Battlestar Galactica Space Battle cartridge for example had to be slightly redesigned and released as Space Battle (without the licensing) because Mattel Electronics couldn't get the license to use the brand for the game, despite their parent company having the license to produce Battlestar Galactica toys. Oops.
The Keyboard Component was especially contentious, with endless delays, extremely high cost, and was only released in two test markets (New Orleans and Seattle) for $600 in late 1981, without the microphone (that never got off the ground) and by mail order directly from Mattel, but only if you complained to Mattel in writing that you bought the Intellivision on the promise of the eventual Keyboard Component's release. The delays were so problematic that The FTC started fining Mattel $10,000 for each day the full retail release of the Keyboard Component was delayed. Mattel, who had already set up a competing development team to develop their own cheaper, less complicated Keyboard Component, decided ultimately to scrap the original Keyboard Component in mid-1982 and go with their second team's design, code-named LUCKI, and eventually dubbed the ECS (Entertainment Computer System), which was severely stripped down compared to the Keyboard Component's specs, and couldn't do pretty much _any_ of the things the Keyboard Component could. That was ultimately displayed at the Winter CES in January of 1983, and the FTC finally stopped fining them a couple of months later.
Unfortunately, the massive cost overruns of the Keyboard Component and ECS, plus the fact that the great Video Game Crash was right around the corner, ultimately killed the Intellivision brand.
This video was resurrected from the archives by Tommy Tallarico of Intellivision Entertainment, makers of the forthcoming (or maybe current, or maybe former, depending on when you're reading this) Amico game system.
