Mattel · 1979–1990

MattelIntellivision

Mattel's answer to Atari: a 16-direction disc, a numeric keypad, and plastic overlays for every game. Complete means the overlays too — every box photographed.

[n] Intellivision games in stockGatefold boxes, overlays, INTV white labels

Shop all Intellivision games Complete in box

Why it mattered

The toy company that went to war with Atari

Mattel test-marketed the Intellivision in Fresno in 1979 and went national in 1980 at $299, with a 16-direction disc controller, a twelve-key keypad and a television campaign in which George Plimpton held up its baseball game next to Atari's and let the pictures make the argument. It was the first real rival to the 2600, it sold about three million units, and its programmers — the Blue Sky Rangers — wrote Astrosmash, Utopia, Night Stalker and the first licensed Dungeons & Dragons video game before Mattel Electronics folded in January 1984.

The library is around 125 cartridges, and complete copies are more common here than on any other console of the era because the boxes were sturdy and the games shipped with two plastic keypad overlays that owners kept in the box. That is the thing to check: a complete Intellivision game has the cartridge, manual and both overlays, and the overlays are the part that go missing. The early gatefold boxes and the white-label INTV Corp reissues are the variants worth knowing. Every cart is photographed and tested.

How we grade and photograph

Fast facts

Released1980 nationwide — test-marketed in Fresno in 1979
Launch price$299 for the Master Component
MediaROM cartridges, each with two keypad overlays
Units sold~3 million worldwide
Best sellerAstrosmash — Poker & Blackjack was the pack-in
Did you know?Every Intellivision game shipped with two plastic overlays that slid into the controller's keypad to label the buttons — one for each controller. They are the reason so many Intellivision games survive complete, because they lived in the box, and the reason a copy without them is not complete. We list the overlays separately in every description.
Did you know?Mattel's programmers were kept anonymous so Atari could not hire them away, and the group took the name Blue Sky Rangers, usually traced to a 1982 magazine article about the division's blue-sky projects. Many of them stayed on when INTV Corp took over, which is why the late games still play like the early ones.
Did you know?The Intellivoice module, released in 1982, added a speech synthesizer for four games: Space Spartans, B-17 Bomber, Bomb Squad and Tron: Solar Sailer. The voices were real actors, digitized. The module sold poorly and was discontinued within a year, so the four games are far more common than the box they plug into.
Did you know?Mattel promised a Keyboard Component from 1980 that would turn the console into a home computer. It shipped only in test markets, cost more than the console, and the Federal Trade Commission eventually fined Mattel for the delay. Around four thousand were made; most were recalled and destroyed, and a surviving one is the rarest Intellivision hardware of all.
Did you know?The same console was sold by Sears as the Super Video Arcade, by Radio Shack as the Tandyvision One and by GTE Sylvania under its own name, each in a different case. The Sears version played all the same cartridges, and Sears sold its own relabelled copies of Mattel games — the packaging is the only difference.
Did you know?Mattel Electronics lost more than $300 million and closed in January 1984. A group led by Terry Valeski bought the rights, formed INTV Corp, and kept selling the console by mail order and releasing new games — in white boxes — until 1990. Intellivision outlasted the ColecoVision, the 5200 and the 7800's arrival because of it.
Did you know?Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Cloudy Mountain, released in 1982, was the first licensed D&D video game on any platform, and its sequel Treasure of Tarmin followed in 1983. Both were later reprinted by INTV Corp with the license removed, as simply Adventure and Minotaur — which is why the same game can carry two names.
Did you know?Mattel also published Intellivision games for the 2600 under the M Network label, and the trade went both ways: Coleco released Donkey Kong, Mouse Trap and Carnival on the Intellivision, Imagic sent over Demon Attack and Atlantis, and Activision shipped Pitfall!, River Raid and Beamrider. The third-party shelf here is small but unusually good.

THE SHELVES INTELLIVISION GAMES WORTH REMEMBERING

Hand-picked shelves, filled live from what is in stock right now. Best condition first — jump to a condition below.

The grails

Spiker! Super Pro Volleyball, Stadium Mud Buggies, Mountain Madness, Thunder Castle, Hover Force, Dracula, Diner — the late INTV Corp runs and the Imagic rarities that make the last ten cartridges the hard ten.

The Intellivision icons

Astrosmash, Night Stalker, Utopia, Shark! Shark!, B-17 Bomber, Tron Deadly Discs, BurgerTime, Lock 'N Chase, Snafu — the games people mean when they say Intellivision.

Every kind of Battle

Space Battle. Sea Battle. Armor Battle. Land Battle. Mattel's naming convention was a noun, then the word Battle, and it worked every time.

From the arcade, by way of Mattel

Lock 'N Chase, Mission X, Loco-Motion, BurgerTime, Bump 'n' Jump, Donkey Kong, Mouse Trap, Frogger, Q*bert — Mattel and everyone else licensing coin-ops for the disc controller.

Las Vegas, by mail

Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack, Las Vegas Roulette, Horse Racing, Royal Dealer — the casino shelf, and the pack-in that taught a generation of eight-year-olds to split eights.

Sports Network: the acronym shelf

NFL Football, NBA Basketball, NHL Hockey, NASL Soccer, PBA Bowling, PGA Golf, Major League Baseball, U.S. Ski Team Skiing — Mattel bought the license to every set of initials in American sport.

Imagic, Activision, Coleco, Parker

Demon Attack, Atlantis, Beauty & the Beast, Microsurgeon, Dracula, Pitfall!, River Raid, Beamrider, Donkey Kong, Mouse Trap, Frogger, Q*bert — the third parties who bothered, and mostly did it well.

INTV Corp: the white boxes

Super Pro Football, Slam Dunk, Chip Shot, Body Slam, Thunder Castle, Tower of Doom, Hover Force, Dig Dug, Pole Position, Commando — the mail-order years, 1985 to 1990, when Intellivision outlived everyone.

It talks: Intellivoice

B-17 Bomber, Space Spartans, Bomb Squad, Tron: Solar Sailer — the four games that speak when the Intellivoice module is plugged in, and are oddly quiet when it is not.

Licensed characters

Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man, Kool-Aid Man, Tron, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Dracula, Popeye, Frogger, Donkey Kong — the license shelf, from Mattel's own toy aisle outward.

Same console, different store

Sears Super Video Arcade, Radio Shack Tandyvision One, GTE Sylvania — the rebadged consoles and their relabelled cartridges, plus Mattel's own red-label and gatefold-box variants.

Complete in box, best condition first

Every complete Intellivision game in stock right now.

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Cart with manual

Cart and manual, no box — the collector's middle ground.

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Loose carts

Cartridge only — cleaned, tested on real hardware, photographed.

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Sealed

Factory sealed and photographed through the shrink.

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MattelIntellivision

The toy company that went to war with Atari