The gaming industry has been built on the shoulders of the greats, woefully we have lost one those great pioneers earlier this morning.
Keith Robinson, the lead programmer and Products President over at Intellivision has passed away, the news of his death broke earlier this morning on Twitter, with gaming historians Antoine Clerc-Renaud and Frank Cifaldi amongst several other industry leaders who had initially reported on the sad news of his passing. Affectionately known as Keith “Mr. Intellivision” Robinson, the industry legend was amongst the finest leaders and pioneers during a time video games, particularly home consoles dealt with the growing pains of new hardware and all the troubles associated with a post-Videogame Crash world. Keith Robinson was a programmer for Intellivision since 1981, however, he really helped Intellivision during the early 90s, when he obtained the rights for the at the time, failing console and its games. With the help of his peer and fellow programmer, Stephen Roney, the two managed to salvage the in trouble brand along with the Intellivision console itself.
Keith Robinson, during his long and storied career at Intellivision, worked on titles such as TRON Solar Sailer and Thin Ice. Keith never finished working on the TRON title, instead, after programming for the game, he was given the opportunity to manage and lead a team of programmers and artists responsible for various projects for titles ranging from the Atari 2600, ColecoVision and of course the Intellivision. Some of the programmers that Keith supervised were officially known under the moniker of “The Blue Sky Rangers” the strange yet fitting name was given to the group of programmers in the means of a guise, in order to prevent their rivals over at Atari from knowing that Mattel developers, who had worked for Atari were amongst the group that Keith was a part of.
Although the Intellivision brand has become more obscure over the years amongst the newer generation, throughout his career and even in his personal life, Keith Robinson embraced the gaming community and kept the Intellivision brand alive, as he was known for his enthusiasm towards it during conventions and videogame expos in the 2000s and onward. Keith Robinson will be greatly missed by both the Intellivision and the larger videogame community as a whole.
