While this is a just a nostalgic bit of news for a Friday afternoon now, if you scrolled back to the 1990s it is a bit like Coke buying Pepsi.
Intellivision, by Mattel Electronics, hit the shelves in 1979 and flogged a cool five million units by 1990, squaring up to the Atari 2600, which had been around since 1977. They even got George Plimpton, the actor, to front a bunch of ads bigging up their console over Atari's, and they showed off an eight-minute brag reel at Gamescom.
Atari, born in 1972 and now part of France's Atari SA (they used to be called Infogrames), has been busy keeping the flame alive for their classic games. We're talking about Pong, Asteroids, Centipede, and Missile Command – proper old-school stuff.
With this deal, Intellivision Entertainment will slap on a fresh coat of paint and continue with their Amico game console, all while flying the Atari flag to keep churning out new takes on the classic Intellivision game collection. They reckon they were the first to bring out a 16-bit game console before it was cool.
Atari boss Wade Rosen said it was a rare opportunity to unite former competitors and bring together fans of Atari, Intellivision and the golden age of gaming.
Atari game studio Digital Eclipse boss Mike Mika said that uniting Atari and Intellivision after 45 years ends the longest-running console war in history."
Atari has big plans to push out the old Intellivision games, both digitally and in the real world, and they might even whip up some brand-new games. They're also sniffing around for brand and licensing deals, all part of their grand scheme to make a pretty penny from the Intellivision stash.
Intellivision boss Phil Adam said that Atari has been a valuable partner, and we have every confidence that they will be responsible stewards of the storied Intellivision brand.
"We look forward to our expanded partnership and the prospect of bringing a broad array of new titles to the Amico family gaming platform."
To celebrate the deal, Atari's flogging some fresh Intellivision T-shirts from Thursday on their website, promising more gear and goodies to follow.