![]() Despite these setbacks, Magnavox Odyssey made its mark by starting the video game console industry. Many potential consumers were under the impression-sometimes encouraged by Magnavox salesmen-that Odyssey would only work on Magnavox television sets. Among the contributing factors, poor marketing played a large role. With approximately 350,000 units sold, Magnavox Odyssey was not considered a commercial success, especially in comparison with Pong’s runaway popularity. These accessories were possibly included to make the Odyssey more like the physical games that existed at the time. Perhaps most surprising to modern gamers, the Odyssey also came with nonelectronic game accessories such as dice, decks of cards, play money, and poker chips. Since the Odyssey had limited graphic capabilities and displayed only a few small white blocks and a vertical line on the screen, Magnavox included translucent color overlays to provide settings and layouts for the games. Additional games and accessories, like a lightgun, were sold in separate packages. However, months earlier, Magnavox had released its Magnavox Odyssey, a home video game system based on the “Brown Box,” a prototype invented by Ralph Baer. ![]() Because of poor marketing and advertising, the Magnavox went out of production in 1975, but certainly, the so-called Atari Age owes something to this pioneer. ![]() When most people think about the first video game, they think of Pong, the ping-pong arcade game released by Atari in 1972. Other games for the Magnavox Odyssey include Interplanetary War, Haunted House, Cat and Mouse, Simon Says, and Brain Waves, as well as an abundance of sports game.
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