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93-484: Located in a large exhibition center, the museum is divided into different areas of video game history, starting with the Magnavox Odyssey . The collection displays 440 pieces of video game ephemera and has more than 100 panels with information about the history and background of the items displayed. Fifteen video game retrospectives give the viewers first-person knowledge of making certain games. In addition to

186-453: A "lite" version with five games and a version with four controllers and a dozen new or updated games. Baer proposed an add-on that would add sound to games, and a putting controller and associated golf game. Magnavox rejected the proposals, instead releasing four games for sale in 1973, designed wholly or in part by Emry. Although still only available at Magnavox dealers, national marketing for Odyssey began in late 1973. The company lowered

279-475: A Sanders patent attorney recommended contacting television manufacturers. Baer demonstrated the system to several companies, who all expressed enthusiasm; only RCA wanted to purchase the device, however, and an agreement could not be reached. Soon afterwards, though, RCA executive Bill Enders left RCA for Magnavox and convinced them to look at the console again. The creators of the Brown Box again demonstrated

372-407: A cartridge containing 27 games. As people transitioned to the newer systems, some companies were left with surplus stock and were selling at a loss. The combination of market saturation and the start of the second generation caused many companies to leave the market completely. These events became known as the video game crash of 1977, as sales of second generation consoles were only modest for

465-448: A chasing game, a light gun game, and three types of controllers: joysticks for the chase game, a rifle for the light gun game, and a three dial controller for the ping-pong game. Campman felt that the system was advanced enough to begin trying to find a manufacturer to buy it; they had decided to sell the rights to produce the console, as Sanders was not in the business of making and selling commercial electronics. The team first approached

558-758: A fee and prosecuted companies who released consoles without a licensing agreement. It was with the Odyssey that Nintendo first became involved in the home video game market. According to Martin Picard in the International Journal of Computer Game Research : "in 1971, Nintendo had – even before the marketing of the first home console in the United States – an alliance with the American pioneer Magnavox to develop and produce optoelectronic guns for

651-417: A final product. They designed the exterior of the machine and re-engineered some of the internals with consultation from Baer and Harrison; they removed the ability to display color, used only the three dial controller, and changed the system of selecting games from a dial to separate game cards that modified the console's circuitry when plugged into the console. At the time, color televisions were still seen as

744-422: A game where players controlled dots chasing each other and a light gun shooter game with a plastic rifle. By August 1967, Baer and Harrison had completed a third prototype machine, but Baer felt that he was not proving successful at designing fun games for the system; to make up for this he added Bill Rusch, who had helped him come up with the initial games for the console, to the project. He soon proved his value to

837-417: A license in exchange for US$ 1.5  million (equivalent to $ 10.3 million) and access granted to Magnavox to all technology produced by Atari from June 1976 to June 1977; other defendants paid higher penalties. Over the next twenty years, Sanders and Magnavox sued several other companies over the issue, focusing on " paddle-and-ball " type games like Pong and Table Tennis that more clearly violated

930-470: A licensee of Magnavox. Home video games achieved widespread popularity with the release of a home version of Pong and its success sparked hundreds of clones, including the Coleco Telstar , which went on to be a success in its own right with over a dozen models. Starting in 1976, Coleco released a series of fourteen dedicated consoles up until 1978, when they suffered a significant loss due to

1023-496: A luxury item, and the ability to show color would have added additional expense and time spent dealing with FCC testing and regulations. The internal circuitry had been designed with discrete components rather than integrated circuits due to cost concerns, and although integrated circuits were becoming common by 1972 Magnavox did not redesign the circuitry to use them. The games for the system were designed by Ron Bradford of Bradford/Cout Design and adman Steve Lehner, based largely on

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1116-414: A more focused prototype machine with fewer components, but found that to even come near to Baer's initial price target of US$ 25 the console would require so much to be excluded that the resulting product would not be very enjoyable. Baer additionally felt that he was not proving successful at designing fun games for the system; to make up for this he formally added Bill Rusch, who had helped him come up with

1209-403: A pair which described how the Odyssey showed player-controlled objects, or dots, on a video monitor and described a number of games that could be played with the system, with one patent by Baer and one by Rusch. The judge, John Grady, ruled in early 1977 that Baer's patent for the Odyssey constituted "the pioneering patent of the video game art", held the defendants' games as infringing, and set

1302-518: A potential hit, and it became the company's first game. Pong was very successful, and in turn helped drive sales of the Odyssey; Baer noted that customers bought the console because of Table Tennis , in turn because of Pong , and joked that they may as well have stopped designing games after that game card. In April 1974, however, Magnavox sued Atari along with several competitors, including Allied Leisure, Bally Midway , and arcade distributor Empire, for infringing on its patents for video games played on

1395-464: A precedent that any video game where a machine-controlled visual element hit and bounced off a player-controlled element violated Rusch's patent. At the time of judgement, only Seeburg Corporation and Chicago Dynamic Industries—though bankrupt—remained out of the defendants of the initial three lawsuits, with all other companies having settled out of court. Atari's settlement, made in June 1976, granted it

1488-424: A prototype of the game. By the end of November 1970, the pair had abandoned the project as untenable, as economically feasible computers were not powerful enough. Dabney soon thought of a way to manipulate the video signal on the screen without a computer controlling it, and from there Syzygy Engineering came up with the idea of removing the computer altogether and building specialized hardware to handle everything for

1581-795: A separately sold add-on game, Shooting Gallery , and Magnavox added paper money, playing cards, and poker chips to the console, to go along with the plastic overlays for the games designed by Bradford that enhanced the primitive visuals. The new additions helped raise the price of the console to US$ 99.95 (equivalent to about $ 730 in 2023). Baer was upset with the board game additions, which he felt were pointless add-ons that would go unused by players. Magnavox performed market surveys and playtests in Los Angeles and Grand Rapids, Michigan, and demonstrated it to dealers in Las Vegas in May 1972. The console

1674-425: A small range of beeps and buzzes. In 1976, General Instrument produced a series of affordable integrated chips that allowed companies to simplify console production and lower costs. Due to this, many companies had entered the home console market by the late 1970s. A significant number released consoles that were essentially clones of Atari's Home Pong and many were poorly made and rushed to market, causing

1767-410: A television screen. Two more lawsuits joined it by 1975, against Sears , Nutting, Williams Electronics , and others. Baer later stated that the lawsuits were not filed right away because Magnavox and Sanders needed to wait until they could expect to be awarded more money than it would cost to pursue the suits. The root of the conflict was a set of patents by Baer and the development team—particularly

1860-507: A well-established Japanese company that made a number of different products, entered the video game console market for the first time in 1977 with its Color TV-Game series . In 1951, Ralph Baer conceived the idea of an interactive television while designing a television set for Loral in the Bronx, New York . Baer did not pursue the idea, but it returned to him in August 1966 when he was

1953-601: Is a 1962 mainframe game developed by a group of students and employees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Bushnell had worked at an amusement park, and felt that an arcade game version of the game would be very popular. The high price of computers capable of running the game, however, meant that any such arcade game would not be economically feasible. By 1970, however, minicomputers were beginning to come down in price. He and his office mate, Ted Dabney , agreed to work together to try and design

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2046-630: The Magnavox Odyssey 2 . While it showed the potential of video game consoles and was an early part of the rise of the commercial video game industry , the Odyssey is not generally considered a major commercial success. Magnavox produced no more games for the console after 1973 and rejected proposals for different versions of the console or accessories. While a few clone systems were produced in limited quantities, and multiple dedicated systems—generally focused on ping-pong game variants—were created by several companies, no other home video consoles capable of playing separately-produced games were released until

2139-569: The SEGA Corner. VIGAMUS has a large collection of Arcade cabinets from the '80s and '90s and some of their featured games include: Launched in June 2016, this room houses the Oculus Rift DK2 , sponsored by ASUS , visitors have a chance to play a variety of games in VR . Magnavox Odyssey The Magnavox Odyssey is the first commercial home video game console . The hardware

2232-740: The history of video games , the first generation era refers to the video games, video game consoles , and handheld video game consoles available from 1972 to 1983. Notable consoles of the first generation include the Odyssey series (excluding the Magnavox Odyssey 2 ), the Atari Home Pong , the Coleco Telstar series and the Color TV-Game series . The generation ended with the Computer TV-Game in 1980 and its following discontinuation in 1983, but many manufacturers had left

2325-528: The 1976 Fairchild Semiconductor Channel F . Due to his work on the Odyssey, Baer has been referred to as the "Father of Video Games". In 2004, Baer was awarded the National Medal of Technology for "his groundbreaking and pioneering creation, development and commercialization of interactive video games, which spawned related uses, applications, and mega-industries in both the entertainment and education realms". The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) added

2418-586: The 20th Anniversary of Pokémon Tournament. The museum invites guests to play in a tournament to win versions of the newly released games or themed prizes. In November 2016, the museum partnered with the Leonardo Caltagirone Group to launch GAMEROME, a new video game convention. The console interactive areas feature 36 stations for visitor use, with new games added frequently. There are different themed corners and rooms, such as areas for The Witcher series of books and video games , and

2511-673: The Chief Engineer and manager of the Equipment Design Division at Sanders Associates . By December 1966, he and a technician created a prototype that allowed a player to move a line across the screen. After a demonstration to the company's director of research and development, some funding was allotted and the project was made official. Baer spent the next few months designing further prototypes, and in February 1967 assigned technician Bill Harrison to begin building

2604-784: The Magnavox Odyssey to its permanent collection of video games in 2013. MoMA's Paul Galloway described the console as "a masterpiece of engineering and industrial design" and stated that it was "hard to overstate the importance of [Ralph Baer's] place in the birth of the industry". The Brown Box prototype and the TV Game #1 prototype are located in Washington, D.C. at the Smithsonian Institution 's National Museum of American History . In May 1972, Nutting Associates chief engineer Nolan Bushnell , designer of

2697-566: The Mattel Speed Freak and the Mattel Competition Football handhelds are closer to the end of the first generation (1982) . They were followed by other titles based on sports and some licensed properties such as Battlestar Galactica . Each game had basic controls, a simple LED interface and a buzzer for sound. The series was popular, sold well and, at times, was difficult to find due to high demand. In

2790-520: The Odyssey and other Magnavox products. Continuing demand led Magnavox to manufacture an additional 27,000 units for the 1973 holiday season, selling 20,000 of them according to Baer. It was released in 1974 in limited quantities in 11 other countries: Australia, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, the Soviet Union, Spain, Switzerland, and Venezuela. It was additionally released at some point in other countries, such as Mexico, where it

2883-837: The Odyssey, since it was similar to what Nintendo was able to offer in the Japanese toy market in [the] 1970s." In 1974 North American Philips purchased Magnavox and released a series of eight Odyssey consoles in North America from 1975 to 1977. All of them were dedicated consoles , and each subsequent release was an improvement over the previous, adding features such as additional game variations, on-screen displays, and player-controlled handicaps such as smaller paddle sizes and variable ball speed. Three Odyssey series consoles were also released in Europe with similar features from 1976 to 1978. On September 12, 1975, several months before

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2976-505: The Odyssey, the first video game light gun . Named the Electronic Rifle, the rifle-shaped device registered a hit when pointed at a light source such as a dot on the television screen. Four shooting-based games were included with the light gun. The light guns were designed and manufactured by Nintendo , based on their 1970 Beam Gun toy. In 1951, while working for military contractor Loral Electronics , engineer Ralph H. Baer

3069-409: The Odyssey. Patents by Baer and the other developers for the system and the games, including what was termed by a judge as "the pioneering patent of the video game art", formed the basis of a series of lawsuits spanning 20 years, earning Sanders and Magnavox over US$ 100  million. The release of the Odyssey marked the beginning of the first generation of video game consoles and was an early part of

3162-419: The ability to display color, reduced the number of controller types, and changed the system of selecting games from a dial to separate game cards that modified the console's circuitry when plugged into the console. Magnavox named the console the Magnavox Odyssey and announced the system's launch date for September 1972. In the late 1960s, Nolan Bushnell saw Spacewar! at Stanford University. Spacewar!

3255-452: The cable television industry, and the prototype attracted the attention of TelePrompTer Corporation , who had seen it during a visit. After a few months of talks, cash-flow problems forced TelePrompTer to back out in April 1968. The same economic downturn that caused TelePrompTer's problems caused financial difficulties at Sanders as well, which put the project on hold after the fifth prototype

3348-478: The combination of dock workers' strike, preventing it from shipping the final product in time for the holidays, and the start of the second generation. The series featured a number of different styles of ball games and external accessories to enhance gameplay such as the Telstar Arcade, which had a unique triangular design that came with a light gun and steering wheel attached to the casing. The series

3441-516: The concept of using a television to play games, and the next morning wrote up a four-page proposal for a "game box" that would plug into a television screen, costing around US$ 25 (equivalent to about $ 230 in 2023). The proposed device would transmit a signal that the television set could tune into like a television channel, which Baer referred to as Channel LP, short for "let's play", and he described several games that could be played on it. While electronic computer games had been developed since

3534-420: The console through their dealerships, Magnavox sold 69,000 units in its first calendar year and 350,000 by the time the console was discontinued in 1975. The console spawned the Odyssey series of dedicated consoles as well as the 1978 Magnavox Odyssey 2 . One of the 28 games made for the system, a ping-pong game, was an inspiration for Atari 's successful 1972 Pong arcade game, in turn driving sales of

3627-517: The console. Magnavox published two catalogs each year, one before the Christmas season and another for its annual sale in January. The Odyssey did not appear in the pre-Christmas 1972 catalog, but the January 1973 catalog depicted the console in a two-page spread with pictures of bundled and optional games and the light gun. Fritsche's team proposed the creation of alternate versions of the Odyssey,

3720-447: The console. The Odyssey was sold only through Magnavox dealers, who handled their own advertising in their local markets; the company hoped that as the video game console was the first such product, consumers would visit its stores specifically for it. There are conflicting reports between Baer and Magnavox employees as to whether Magnavox produced 120,000 or 140,000 consoles in 1972. Magnavox only sold 69,000 units. Baer believed that

3813-419: The console. These cards modify the internal circuitry like a set of switches or jumpers , causing the Odyssey to display different components and react to inputs differently. Multiple games use the same cards, with different instructions given to the player to change the style of the game. The Odyssey is capable of displaying three square dots and a vertical line on the screen. Two of the dots are controlled by

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3906-452: The device to Magnavox in July 1969; they received a tepid reaction from most of the executives, but Vice President of Magnavox Console Products Planning Gerry Martin was in favor, and Magnavox agreed to produce the console. After a long period of negotiations the two companies finally signed an agreement in January 1971. A team from Magnavox led by George Kent turned the prototype console into

3999-487: The early 1990s. A total of 28 games distributed on 11 different game cards were released for the Magnavox Odyssey. 13 games were included with the console—a set of 12 in America and a different set of 10 in other countries—with six others available for purchase either individually or in a bundle; the additional games primarily used the same game cards with different screen overlays and instructions. Another game, Percepts ,

4092-514: The first commercial arcade video game , Computer Space , saw a demonstration of the Odyssey. Inspired, when he and Ted Dabney quit Nutting to found Atari , he assigned Allan Alcorn to create a cheap ping-pong arcade game as a training exercise, though he did not tell Alcorn that it was for training nor that the idea was based on the Odyssey Table Tennis game. Alcorn soon developed Pong (1972), which Bushnell recognized as

4185-459: The future of the home video game market. In June, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded Atari , which would go on to be one of the most well-known video game companies and play a vital role in the early generations of consoles. In September, Magnavox , an established electronics company, released the Odyssey . Inspired by the Odyssey's ping-pong game, Atari would soon go on to market the game Pong in both arcade and home versions; Nintendo ,

4278-488: The game instead. Computer Space , the first commercial arcade video game, was released by the pair as Syzygy Engineering through Nutting Associates at the end of 1971 and after its release they incorporated as Atari in the following year and began designing more games. Bushnell saw a demonstration of the Odyssey console playing its Table Tennis game in early 1972 and assigned their first employee, Allan Alcorn , to produce an arcade table tennis game. The result, Pong ,

4371-411: The game played to enhance the gameplay experience as graphical capabilities consisted of simple geometry such as dots, lines or blocks that would occupy only a single screen. First generation consoles were not capable of displaying more than two colours until later in the generation, and audio capabilities were limited with some consoles having no sound at all. In 1972, two major developments influenced

4464-402: The game show What's My Line? on October 16, 1972. As the term "video game" was not yet in use, the company described the console as "the new electronic game of the future" and "closed-circuit electronic playground". Magnavox initially ordered 50,000 units, but before release increased its production capabilities and built a larger inventory, as market testing found an enthusiastic response to

4557-428: The games, while a peripheral controller—the first video game light gun —was sold separately. The idea for a video game console was conceived by Baer in August 1966. Over the next three years he, along with Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch, created seven successive prototype consoles. The seventh, known as the Brown Box, was shown to several manufacturers before Magnavox agreed to produce it in January 1971. After releasing

4650-401: The games. It had features that became industry standard in subsequent generations such as detachable controllers, light gun accessories and interchangeable game media. While no game data was stored on the circuit cards as they would be in future consoles, they could be used to select one of the twelve games built onto the hardware. Magnavox licensed its video game patents to other companies for

4743-421: The generation moved the bulk of the circuitry to custom integrated circuits such as Atari's custom Pong chips and General Instruments' AY-3-8500 series. Graphical capabilities were limited throughout the generation, often supported with physical accessories and screen overlays, but saw some improvement towards the end of the generation. While the Odyssey could only display 3 square dots in black and white, as

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4836-500: The generation progressed, consoles started being able to display color as well as more complex shapes and text. Early consoles such as the Odyssey and TV Tennis Electrotennis required players to keep track of scores manually but later, many introduced score counters on the display to assist players in score tracking. Audio capabilities were slow to improve over the generation, starting with the Odyssey, which had no audio, and later moving on to consoles which had buzzers that could produce

4929-464: The home console market to saturate. The demand for the chip was so high that General Instruments could not supply enough to satisfy all the orders it was receiving causing problems for some smaller companies. Coleco received their order early on, allowing them to build up strong production capabilities and have success with their Telstar range. The start of the second generation and the next major advancement in home console technology began in 1976 with

5022-554: The idea to his bosses. By December 1966, they had completed an initial prototype later christened "TV Game #1", which could display and move a vertical line on a television screen. Baer demonstrated the prototype to the Sanders director of research and development, Herbert Campman, who hesitantly agreed to fund it for US$ 2,000 (equivalent to about $ 18,780 in 2023) for labor and US$ 500 (equivalent to about $ 4,700 in 2023) for materials, making it an official project. Baer spent

5115-415: The initial games for the console, to the project. Though the pair found Rusch difficult to work with, he soon proved his value to the team by coming up with a way to display a third, console-controlled spot on the screen in addition to the previous two player-controlled ones, and proposing the development of a ping-pong game. By November, the team, now on their fourth prototype machine, had a ping-pong game,

5208-438: The low initial sales were due to the high price, and because Magnavox restricted sales to its dealerships and implied that the device only worked with Magnavox televisions. Other sources have stated that dealers may have misled customers to sell more televisions, though advertisements and in-store promotional videos explicitly stated that the Odyssey worked with "any brand TV, black and white or color". Customers unfamiliar with

5301-401: The market prior due to the market decline in the year of 1978 and the start of the second generation of video game consoles . Most of the games developed during this generation were hard-wired into the consoles and unlike later generations, most were not contained on removable media that the user could switch between. Consoles often came with accessories and cartridges that could alter the way

5394-456: The new device, seeing it was only sold at Magnavox dealerships, may have misunderstood its interoperability. Magnavox assistant product planner Don Emry said that the sales were in line with the original projections, if not the production run. After the initial holiday season Magnavox considered discontinuing the console, but the modest continuing demand, along with high customer satisfaction reports in surveys, convinced it to continue stocking

5487-464: The new prototype to Campman, who enjoyed the shooting game, increased funding, and recommended Baer demonstrate the project to senior management. Baer demonstrated the console to the board, who were largely uninterested, though a couple of members were enthusiastic; nevertheless, CEO Royden Sanders authorized the project to be continued with the aim of selling or licensing the console as a commercial product. By August 1967, Baer and Harrison completed

5580-415: The next few months designing further prototypes, and in February 1967, assigned technician Bill Harrison to begin building the project. Harrison spent the next few months in between other projects building out successive modifications to the prototype. Baer, meanwhile, brainstormed with engineer Bill Rusch on ideas for games for the console, resulting in a proposal for the basis of many games later created for

5673-519: The next few years until the arrival of the killer app , the home port of Space Invaders for the Atari VCS in 1980. There were hundreds of home video game consoles known to have existed in the first generation of video games. This section lists the most notable. In 1972 Magnavox released the world's first home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey. It came packaged with board game paraphernalia such as cards, paper money and dice to enhance

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5766-521: The ones developed by Baer, Harrison, and Rusch. The product planning for the console was initially overseen by Bob Wiles of the color television division, but was turned over to product manager Bob Fritsche as its own category of product in September 1971. Magnavox named the console first as the Skill-O-Vision while testing, and then released it as the Odyssey. The rifle game was turned into

5859-444: The patent; the final lawsuits ended in the mid-1990s. Defendants included Coleco, Mattel , Seeburg , and Activision ; Sanders and Magnavox won or settled every lawsuit. Many of the defendants unsuccessfully attempted to claim that the patents only applied to the specific hardware implementations that Baer had used, or that they were invalidated by prior computer or electronic games. In 1985, Nintendo sued and tried to invalidate

5952-430: The patents, claiming as prior art the 1958 Tennis for Two game built by William Higinbotham . The court, however, ruled that the oscilloscope -based game did not use video signals and therefore did not qualify as a video game, and ruled again in favor of Magnavox and Sanders. Magnavox won more than US$ 100  million in the various lawsuits and settlements involving the Odyssey related patents before they expired in

6045-493: The ping-pong and hockey games from the original Odyssey, while the 200 also had the handball game and a rudimentary on-screen scoring system. The 100 and 200 were released in November 1975 to replace the Odyssey for US$ 69.95 (equivalent to about $ 400 in 2023) and US$ 109.95 (equivalent to about $ 620 in 2023), respectively. Eleven dedicated Odyssey consoles were produced before a follow-up non-dedicated console in 1978,

6138-480: The price to US$ 50 (equivalent to about $ 340 in 2023) if purchased with a television. The console was released that year with different games in the United Kingdom. In late 1973, Magnavox ran a large advertising campaign for its 1974 products, including sponsoring Frank Sinatra 's November television special Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back . Commercials during the special and advertisements for it showed

6231-412: The project. Harrison spent the next few months in between other projects building out successive modifications to the prototype. Baer, meanwhile, collaborated with engineer Bill Rusch on the design of the console, including developing the basis of many games for the system. By May, the first game was developed and by June, multiple games were completed for what was then a second prototype box. This included

6324-567: The regular exhibits, the museum also has different interactive areas for arcade games , console games , and an Oculus VR room. Some of the unique items featured at the museum include the DOOM master disks and Crytek demo disks. The museum partnered with Crytek to launch a graduate course aimed at virtual reality development. The museum also has its own magazine called VMag about the video game industry. The museum often hosts themed nights or tournaments, such as their Dark Souls III Day and

6417-535: The release of Home Pong in North America, Epoch released Japan's first home console, the TV Tennis Electrotennis. The technology was licensed from Magnavox and it contained a single ball and paddle style game that resembled Pong but without an onscreen score display. The game controls were contained within the base unit and it connected to a television set through an ultra high frequency (UHF) antenna, as opposed to being directly connected, which

6510-494: The release of the Fairchild Channel F . The technology behind the first generation quickly became obsolete as consumers had the ability to purchase new games for second generation consoles instead of having to purchase new systems when they wanted new content as with the dedicated consoles of the first generation. In comparison to the limited game library for each dedicated console, the Atari VCS launched with Combat,

6603-451: The rise of the commercial video game industry . The Odyssey consists of a black, white, and brown oblong box connected by wires to two rectangular controllers . The console connects to the television set through an included switch box, which allows the player to switch the television input between the Odyssey and the regular television input cable, and presents itself like a television channel on channel three or four, which thereafter became

6696-503: The screen in monochrome black and white, with differing behavior for the dots depending on the game played. Players place plastic overlays on the screen to display additional visual elements for each game, and one or two players for each game control their dots with the knobs and buttons on the controller by the rules given for the game. The console cannot generate audio or track scores . The Odyssey console came packaged with dice, paper money, and other board game paraphernalia to accompany

6789-561: The series, the Color TV-Game Racing 112, was the first project of Shigeru Miyamoto , who would go on to become the creator of some of the most well-known video game franchises. All of the handheld systems from the first generation are dedicated consoles and started late into the first generation. It was not until the second generation and the release of the Microvision that players could purchase games separately for

6882-487: The standard for game consoles. The controllers, designed to sit on a flat surface, contain one button marked Reset on the top of the controller and three knobs : one on the right side of the controller, and two on the left with one extending from the other. The reset button resets individual elements depending on the game, such as making a player's dot visible after it is turned off. The system can be powered by six C batteries , which were included; an optional AC power supply

6975-431: The start of the 1950s, they were typically only found in large academic or research institutions, and in 1966 no commercial games or video game industry existed, or any form of video games for consumer television sets. As a "game box" had little to do with the typical military contracts Sanders worked on, Baer picked an empty room and assigned one of his technicians, Bob Tremblay, to work on it with him rather than bring

7068-417: The system. Harrison began developing some early games in May, beginning with a two-player game where the players repeatedly press a button in competition to fill or empty a bucket of water, and by June multiple games were completed for what was then a second prototype box. These included a game where players controlled dots chasing each other and a light gun shooter game with a plastic rifle. Baer demonstrated

7161-527: The systems. The early dedicated handheld consoles were eventually eclipsed in popularity by programmable video games, which became popular in the fourth generation with the introduction of the Game Boy . One notable example is the Mattel handheld game series, which were released from 1976 to 1982. The first to be released were Mattel Auto Race and Mattel Football, while some of the latter models like

7254-404: The team by coming up with a way to display three dots on the screen at once rather than the previous two, and proposing the development of a ping pong game. As Sanders was a military contractor and not in the business of making and selling commercial electronics, the team approached several cable television industry companies to produce the console, but were unable to find a buyer. By January 1969

7347-442: The team had produced the seventh prototype, nicknamed the " Brown Box ". After a Sanders patent attorney recommended approaching television manufacturers, they found interest first at RCA and finally at Magnavox , who entered negotiations in July 1969 and signed an agreement in January 1971. Magnavox designed the exterior of the machine, and re-engineered some of the internals with consultation from Baer and Harrison; they removed

7440-399: The television via static cling to create visuals. Games that use the same game card can have different overlays, which can change a game with the same controls from, for example, a mountain ski path to a movement-based Simon Says game. In addition to the overlays, the Odyssey came with dice, poker chips, score sheets, play money, and card decks. One peripheral controller was released for

7533-416: The transistors and diodes of the original system, and designed a limited version of the console around them. The result was the first of several dedicated consoles —consoles that could only play games built into the system—in the Magnavox Odyssey series , the Magnavox Odyssey 100 and Magnavox Odyssey 200 , as part of the first generation of video game consoles ; the Odyssey 100 was only capable of playing

7626-424: The two players, and the third by the system itself. The main console has two dials, one of which moves the vertical line across the screen, and one which adjusts the speed of the computer-controlled dot. Different games direct the player to adjust the dials to different positions, such as changing the center line of a tennis game into the side wall of a handball game. The games include plastic overlays that stick to

7719-463: Was assigned to build a television set; Baer later claimed that, while doing so, he had the idea to build something into a television set that the owner could control in addition to its normal function of receiving signals from a remote television station. Loral did not pursue the idea, but it returned to Baer in August 1966 while waiting for a bus. Baer, then the head of the Equipment Design Division at military contractor Sanders Associates , came up with

7812-415: Was available for free to players that sent in a survey card. A light gun accessory, Shooting Gallery , was available for purchase, and included four games on two cards that used the rifle. A final four games were released for sale in 1973. The console does not enforce game rules or keep track of scores for the games; that is left up to the players. First generation of video game consoles In

7905-461: Was continued customer demand for the console, Magnavox discontinued production of the Odyssey in the fall of 1975. Rising inflation had raised the manufacturing cost of the system to Magnavox from roughly US$ 37 to US$ 47 (equivalent to about $ 270 in 2023), and Magnavox was unable to raise the retail price to match. Instead, it sought a cheaper alternative; in May 1974 it signed a contract with Texas Instruments for integrated circuits to replace

7998-425: Was designed by a small team led by Ralph H. Baer at Sanders Associates , while Magnavox completed development and released it in the United States in September 1972 and overseas the following year. The Odyssey consists of a white, black, and brown box that connects to a television set, and two rectangular controllers attached by wires. It is capable of displaying three square dots and one line of varying height on

8091-415: Was developed while simultaneously undergoing large-scale layoffs. It was picked up again in September, this time without Rusch, and went through two more iterations resulting in January 1969 in the seventh prototype, known as the "Brown Box" due to the wood-grain stickers on the casing. With the system now largely complete, as the team began filing for patents they were unsure whom to approach to sell it until

8184-590: Was marketed at a lower price than its competitors and sold well with over a million sales. In the late 1970s, Nintendo released a series of five consoles for the Japanese market. The first of the series and the first console created by Nintendo, the Color TV-Game 6, was released in 1977 and contained six ball-and-paddle games. The last, the Computer TV-Game, was a 1980 port of Nintendo's first arcade game, Computer Othello . The third console in

8277-752: Was named the Magnavox Odisea, and clone versions were released by other manufacturers such as the Overkal in Spain, which may have been the first console produced in Europe. In 1974, Odyssey appeared in the Sears Wish Book . Magnavox sold 89,000 consoles in total in 1973, 129,000 Odyssey units in 1974, and 80,000 units in 1975. According to Baer the company sold 350,000 Odysseys in total worldwide, though Fritsche stated it reached 367,000. The light gun peripheral sold 20,000 units. Although there

8370-568: Was publicly unveiled at a press event at the Tavern on the Green in New York City on May 22, 1972. Magnavox announced the system's launch date of September 1972, with availability restricted to dealers in 18 metropolitan areas, and demonstrated it for the next few months to Magnavox dealerships and media. Magnavox began advertising the Odyssey in mid-September 1972, including an appearance on

8463-462: Was sold separately. The Odyssey lacks sound capability and can only display monochrome white shapes on a blank black screen. Internally, the Odyssey architecture is composed of digital computing parts. The circuitry is implemented in diode–transistor logic using discrete transistors and diodes . The games themselves do not use ROM cartridges like later consoles, but instead, use "game cards" composed of printed circuit boards that plug into

8556-461: Was the first major arcade video game success, and inspired a large number of arcade and dedicated console versions and clones, including Atari's Home Pong in 1975. The first generation of consoles did not contain a microprocessor and were based on custom codeless state machine computers consisting of discrete logic ( TTL ) circuits comprising each element of the game itself. Over the generation, technology steadily improved and later consoles of

8649-577: Was unique to the console at the time. Compared to popular consoles of the generation, it performed poorly with an approximate 20,000 units sold. In late 1975 Atari released a home version of their popular arcade game Pong . It had been in development since 1974 under the lead of Allan Alcorn and Harold Lee. By the end of 1975, Atari had become a major company in the home console market due to Home Pong . Following Pong's success, Magnavox filed suit against Atari for infringement on its technology patents and ended up settling out of court with Atari becoming

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