The Intellivision (‘intelligent television’) console was released by Mattel in 1979 and was responsible for starting the first ever video game console war, going head-to-head against the Atari VCS (later renamed the Atari 2600).
Now, following Atari’s acquisition of the Intellivision brand in 2024, the first ever console war has been definitively ended with the announcement of the Intellivision Sprint, an updated Intellivision to be released by Atari.
Set for release on December 5 in USA and Australia, and December 23 in Europe, the Intellivision Sprint will be priced at $149.99 / £99.99.
Designed to look like the original Intellivison console, the Sprint will support HDMI output for play on modern televisions, as well as a USB port for “library expansion”.
It will also come with 45 classic Intellivision games built in, including Baseball, Soccer, Super Pro Golf, Sea Battle, Space Battle, Astrosmash, Star Strike and Boulder Dash.
The Intellivision was infamous for its unique controller, which featured a round dial and a 12-button keypad similar to that found on a telephone.
Each game came with a card overlay that could be slotted into the controller and sat on top of the keypad, showing the controls for that particular game.
“We’re thrilled to celebrate Intellivision’s 45th anniversary, and what better way to honour it than by bringing back this innovative console for fans to experience once again?” Atari’s VP of strategic operations Matt Burnett said in a statement.
“Becoming caretakers of such an important brand is both a big responsibility and a very fun expansion of our work at Atari.”
Players who want to learn more about Intellivision before investing in the Intellivision Sprint may want to play Atari 50, the ‘interactive museum’ compilation released by Atari and Digital Eclipse in 2022.
