Championship Tennis

INTELLIVISION CARTRIDGE [INTV #8200]

Release 1985

AKA 4-Player Tennis, Doubles Tennis

Produced by Nice Ideas (Mattel Electronics, France)

Program: Patrick Aubry and John Fiddes

Includes code from the previously released Tennis

Originally released in Europe by Dextell Ltd

CATALOG DESCRIPTION (INTV SPRING 1986)

You can play alone, against your Intellivision unit or with another player either in singles or in doubles. You can even let your Intellivision take both sides and just watch. Maybe you'll see some weakness.

Go ahead conquer Paris, New York, and Wimbledon if you can. You will need both great concentration and strong legs to win at Championship Tennis. Play locations such as Flushing Meadows, Roland Garros, Wimbledon. In Championship Tennis you are in charge. See if you have what it takes to win the "grand slam"!

Championship Tennis is an advanced version of the original, successful Intellivision Tennis. You will feel the tension and excitement of some of the great courts in the world, as you serve deep to your opponent's backhand and return a lob with a smashing overhead, just outof reach of your opponent's outstretched racquet. It will require skill, dexterity, cunning and wits along with plenty of practice to master Championship Tennis.

DEVELOPMENT HISTORY

As with World Cup Soccer, this is a Dextell release that received its US debut in the INTV Corp. catalog. And also like World Cup Soccer, it is a Blue Sky Rangers game.

Championship Tennis was started at Mattel Electronics to be a one- to four-player game for the Entertainment Computer System (ECS). Ray Kaestner (BurgerTime) started working on the game briefly at Mattel Electronics headquarters in California, but when he was put on Masters of the Universe II, Doubles Tennis was sent to the French office.

A very preliminary version of the cartridge was shown at the January 1984 Consumer Electronics Show. As with World Cup Soccer, when Mattel Electronics closed, the rights to the unfinished game were given to Nice Ideas, the company formed from the French office.

Nice Ideas completed the cartridge as a one- or two- (or zero-) player non-ECS game and it was released in Europe by Dextell Ltd. INTV Corp. negotiated the rights to distribute the cartridge in the United States, introducing it in Spring 1986.