The Magnavox Odyssey

After WWII (this seems to be a recurring time period) retired RADAR technology was used to create the earliest forms of video games. The first appeared in 1947 and 25 years later in 1972 video games finally made it into the home market with the first home console: the Magnavox Odyssey. However, the technology in this system were even more primitive than the RADAR consoles but Magnavox did take the biggest leap for the video game industry.

Magnavox originally made plans for the creation of the Odyssey in the late 60s and the system was eventually released in 1972 (the same year that Pong revolutionised the arcades). The system could only be played by two players regardless of the game chosen. Before we discuss the games the console itself is unusual. The wire that connected it to the television was incredibly long, possibly the longest wire from a console to a television ever made. The wires that connects the console to the controllers, however, were short and bulky. They had little flexibility meaning the console had to be near the players. When Magnavox retired the Odyssey a few years later many consoles were modified into the pong console known as the Wonder Wizard (we'll save Pong consoles for another time).

Moving on to the games, each game was named after numbers, the first video game on the first home console was known as "1" or "Game 1". The Odyssey came bundled with all eight games, overlays and all manner of other things. Each game loaded up to a blue screen with two white lines. In order to start playing a game you would have to put an overlay on the television screen. The Odyssey had two sizes of overlays depending on the size of the screen. The games were immensly primitive and the system had no ability to keep score. The games included: a hockey game, an american football game, a haunted house game, cat and mouse, simon says, roulette, a game where you navigate down a ski slope and a game where you identify the american state on the map.

Each game came with instructions which could be incredibly confusing for games like the American Football game. In this game before you do anything you have to do maths equations to determin wind speed and direction and all sorts of other things. The Simon Says game came with cards telling you where to place your line.The Hockey game came with a score sheet. The others came with the overlays only. As they were only overlays it was up to the players to make their own rules.

Finally, the Odyssey came with an add-on, the Odyssey Rifle. Unlike other console guns like the NES Zapper or the SNES Super Scope this gun looked like an actual gun. The NES Zapper changed it's design so that it didn't resemble a gun but the Odyssey kept the gun as it was. The gun came bundled with games 9 and 10 for the Odyssey, the last games made for it (until a homebrew game in 2009 [we'll get to homebrews too at some point]).

This system was incredibly primitive, one of the most famous RADAR games: Tennis For Two from the 50s had more of an interactive environment than this system. However, this system did mark the first step of the video game market as we know it today.

#systems #magnavoxodyssey