Intellivision office hit by fire
A fire of unknown origin hit the Manhattan Beach, California, office building that is home to Intellivision Productions, Inc. on February 28, 2011. The fire started in a ground floor dental office underneath the Intellivision office. Luckily, no one was hurt and Inellivision suffered no loses of any historical items. Almost everything in the office was moved into storage for two or three months as the building is being refurbished and cleaned of smoke damage. The inventory of Intellivision merchandise was taken to their homes by Intellivision staff to continue sales and fulfilment. The company apologizes for any delays caused by this situation.

Intellivision comes to the Nintendo DS
After 6 years in development, Intellivision Lives!, a collection of over 60 classic games, has been released for the Nintendo DS handheld. "The second we saw the prototype Nintendo DS at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, we knew this was the perfect platform for Intellivision," says Keith Robinson, President of Intellivision Productions, Inc. "The lower touch-screen lets us duplicate the overlays used on the original hand controllers. This is the closest to the real Intellivision playing experience since the actual console." Such was Robinson's faith in a DS version that Intellivision Productions paid for its development before a publisher was found. Finding the right publishing partner proved harder than developing the game itself. Finally, late in 2009, Intellivision made a deal with Virtual Play Games to bring the cartridge to market. In early December 2011, it started appearing in GameStop stores across country. It is also available on Amazon and on the Intellivision web site.

Third web site redesign for intellivisionlives.com
The intellivisionlives.com web site was launched in June 1995, primarily as a hobby of former Mattel Electronics programmer Keith Robinson to tell the story of Intellivision. The popularity of the site convinced Robinson and fellow Mattel programmer Stephen Roney to found Intellivision Productions, Inc. The site underwent several cosmetic changes after that, but it wasn't until the mid-2000s that it underwent a complete overhaul. At that time, the site was rebuilt on top of blogging software to make it a more interactive experience. "It allowed us to update the site more often," says Robinson, "but, frankly, with the growth of Facebook and Twitter, it is easier now to use them to keep fans up-to-date on the latest news." The site is currently being re-built a third time to focus on the history of Intellivision and on the latest products. Major news will still appear on the site, but breaking news will be announced first through the Intellivision Facebook page and on Twitter. The site will be rebuilt over the final months of 2010 and early 2011. We apologize for any broken or missing links in the meantime. The web site's store will remain unchanged.

Bushnell & Robinson talk classic games
Atari founder Nolan Bushnell and Intellivision Productions President Keith Robinson were the first guests on the pilot episode of NGaming Tonight, a new web talk show devoted to video games. Introduced as "The Godfathers of gaming," Busnell and Robinson tell about the pioneering days of video games and the legacy of Atari and Intellivision for today. The show will be debuting soon on the nGameTV web channel. In the meantime, here is a trailer for the first episode:

Intellivision celebrates at Classic Gaming Expo
The Blue Sky Rangers celebrated the 30th anniversary of Intellivision with milk and cookies at the 2010 Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. After 10 of the former Intellivision game designers held a panel discussion Sunday morning, August 1, they returned to the Intellivision booth at the Expo to celebrate the national release of the Intellivision video game system 30 years earlier. Visitors to the booth could try out the latest releases: iPad and iPhone collections (published by VH1 Classic), Intellivision games in the Microsoft online GameRoom for Xbox 360 and the Intellivision Lives! collection for Nintendo DS. A high-score BurgerTime contest was held on a real Intellivison console.

VH1 Classic releases Intellivision for iPhone & iPad
Music channel VH1 Classic has published Intellivision collections for both iPhone and iPad, which are available in the Apple App Store now. The iPhone app is FREE and comes with one of the most popular Intellivision games, Astrosmash. Five additional titles, Night Stalker, Skiing, Chip Shot: Super Pro Golf, Thin Ice and Thunder Castle, may be downloaded for 99 cents each. The iPad app costs $2.99 to download and comes with the same six games available for iPhone.

Microsoft includes Intellivision in online GameRoom for 360
Microsoft has licensed the Intellivision game catalog for play on their online retrogaming site, GameRoom. The site, which allows users to create virtual arcades of classic arcade and home games, is playable on Xbox 360 and Windows. Over a dozen Intellivision games are already available for play, with many more to come.

Post My Mug! PICTURES OF PEOPLE FROM AROUND THE WORLD IN THEIR INTELLIWEAR! Click on any picture to see the full image. Here's Shawn from Northern California - again. See below for a shot of Shawn from two years ago. He says, "I haven't drug out all of my old garb, but I do have two shirts in the shot, two copies of Intellivision Lives 1.0, one copy of 1.1, and a copy of Intellivision Rocks. A subtle (read: bad) angle has the Activision Intellivision Classics beneath my iced tea, and what a wonderful coaster it doth make! Thanks for updating and compressing everything into this easier-to-swallow CD form. It has rather decreased my bloat as well!" Meet The Hankster, who says, "Well I've been an Intellivision addict since 1979. I almost got divorced because my wife wouldn't let me go to California in 1979 to buy an Intellivision [in 1979, the Intellivision console and games were only available in limited central California test markets], and in fact to this day my wife refers to Intellivision as my 'Mistress.' Thanks for the best 24 years of my life!" Thank you, Hank! No need for us to blow our own horn when we have Chris to do it for us. Here he is wearing his Running Man t-shirt while performing "in front of a monsterous crowd of 12 or so at Bernie's Distillery in Columbus Ohio." The name of his band is Hawthorne Effect, which we like since Intellivision was born in Hawthorne, California! (OK, "Hawthorne Effect" refers to a 1927 experiment in worker productivity in Hawthorne, Illinois - it's still a great name!) From Middlesex, England, here's Nathan - at 2 years, 3 months, possibly the youngest active Intellivision player. His current record on Sharp Shot Football is 42 points (see larger photo at right). It's never too early to get 'em hooked on Intellivision! Meet Kathryn, who says, "I wanna be the first female you put up on the site :)" Glad to oblige! Kathryn's brother got her hooked on Intellivision when she was a kid - they spent hours playing Major League Baseball. Now she's all grown up and showing off her Intellivision 20th Anniversary jersey! Here's Andy from Tucson, Arizona. "Isn't that just a beautiful... shirt?" he asks. Why, yes! That's an Astrosmash shirt from our Limited Edition Collectors Series! This is Shawn from Northern California. He says "I'm not ashamed to be called an Intellivision fan or to show off my addiction." Indeed, we count at least 8 Intellivision consoles in this photo he sent! This is Jeff from Texas. He wrote to tell us how much he likes his hat and his Intellivision: "These are STILL THE BEST games to play and Intellivision is the MACK DATTY of game systems!" Right on, Jeff! Meet Ron. "If you haven't figured out, I'm one of those bicycle stunt guys you see on ESPN all the time, just instead of a ramp (where I'd be wearing a helmet...you don't make Intellivision helmets yet, do you?) - I'm using a banked wall on Water St. right down the block from the New York Stock Exchange. Fun, Fun, Fun. For the record, the hat rocks!" Thanks, Ron! We'll get started on those Intellivision helmets right away. This is Ed, AKA Ye Big Cheese. He sent along these pics, saying he hopes "you'll get a good laugh." We did. This is Alan, showing his preference for the classic Intellivision over that newfangled PlayStation. Here's a couple shots of Louis, one with his Intellivision and one that better shows off the cap. He says the cartridge in the Intellivision, by the way, is Kool-Aid Man: "Although you probably cannot tell that the cart and overlay don't match - I cannot find my Kool-Aid Man overlays, so I used my next favorite game, Dreadnaught Factor." This is Luca from Asti, Italy.