Mattel Intellivision

Mattel, the toy giant behind Barbie and Hot Wheels, entered the video game business with something to prove. Test-marketed in 1979 and released widely in 1980, the Intellivision was pitched squarely at the Atari 2600 as the thinking family's console, and it had the hardware to back up the boast.

At its core ran a 16-bit General Instrument CP1610 processor, unusual for the era, feeding a graphics chip capable of more detailed, colorful sprites than its rival could manage. The distinctive controller reflected the same ambition: a flat, gold-faced pad with a directional disc, side action buttons, and a numeric keypad topped by paper overlays that reprogrammed the keys for each game. It was a controller built for depth, well suited to the strategy and sports titles that became the platform's signature.

Mattel leaned hard into that identity. Its sports lineup, licensed from the major leagues, offered football, baseball, and basketball with a positional realism the 2600 could not touch, and a famously combative advertising campaign starring writer George Plimpton ran side-by-side screenshots to mock Atari's blocky visuals. Games like Astrosmash, Utopia, and the dungeon-crawler Advanced Dungeons and Dragons showcased the machine's range, and an add-on keyboard component was long promised to transform it into a full computer, a saga that dragged Mattel into a federal regulatory dispute over the delays.

The Intellivision sold around three million units and briefly captured a meaningful slice of the market, the closest anyone came to genuinely challenging Atari during the boom. But it too was swallowed by the 1983 crash. Mattel Electronics hemorrhaged money and was shut down, its assets sold off, though a licensee kept the brand limping along until 1990.

Its legacy endures in the memories of a devoted fanbase and in the ownership of its library by successive caretakers who have kept the games in circulation for decades. More than any other machine, the Intellivision established the template for the console war: two rivals, dueling ad campaigns, and consumers picking sides.