Intellivision Entertainment, the company struggling to relaunch the Amico as a retro console, has made significant layoffs in a bid to shrink operating costs and finally bring the device to market.
Phil Adams, the newly-appointed CEO of Intellivision, broke the news in an email shared on social media, and said the company has “dramatically reined in operating costs, which unfortunately required a significant reduction in staff.”
Adams said Intellivision’s resources are now focused on engineering and testing to ensure it can deliver quality hardware, largely because the company “cannot succeed by producing anything less.”
The chief exec added that the company is currently working with development partners to license classic Intellivision properties for publication on other platforms, which should help fund continue development of the Amico.
Notably, Adams said the company has begun a test production run of Amico that includes every aspect of the production, including packaging.
“This is first and foremost an assessment of our manufacturing and approach and overall quality of the delivered product,” said Adams. “It is critically important to show to our current [and] future investors, partners, and customers that we have built a sound platform that delivers on the in-home family experience.”
There was also an admission that the uncertainty surrounding the Amico has led to an influx of pre-order refunds, which are slowly being processed by Intellivision as a result of the staff reductions.
Adams reassured consumers that Intellivision intends to honour all refund requests, and said the company will also focus its initial mass production on fulfilling pre-orders and supplying its two major distribution partners.
The ultimate aim is for Intellivison to begin shipping Amico production units later this year (the system was originally slated to launch in 2021), but there was also the acknowledgement from Adams that “rising inflation, rising energy costs, and lingering supply chains” can affect all manufacturing businesses.