Mattel Electronics

Mattel Electronics was the electronics division of Mattel Inc. that developed only one video game console: the Mattel Intellivision

Intellivision

The Intellivision was an home video game console released in 1979 and was the main competitor of Atari 2600. Mattel had promised that the console could be expanded into a fully functional home computer with the Keyboard Component, however, the original component proved to be too costly to mass-produce and to avoid a complaint for fraud by the Federal Trade Commission they substituted it with the Entertainment Computer System. This was an upgrade that turned the Intellivision into a computer.
Mattel also introduced an innovative device, IntelliVoice, which allowed players to accompany certain games with a rudimentary speech.

In 1983, with the video game crash the Mattel Inc. closed its videogame division. Only in 1991 some managers would buy the division and reopen it under the name of Intellivision inc.

Intellivision's record

• The Intellivision was the first system to allow downloading of games when General Instruments in collaboration with Mattel produced a device called Play Cable, allowing the retrieval of video games through cable TV.
• Intellivision World Series Baseball produced in 1983 was the first video game to use the concept of 3D visualization simulated using the wide-angle shots of sports television.