Odyssey

"The exciting TV electronic game center."

Magnavox's Odyssey was the very first commercial video game console. It was the brainchild of the legend Ralph H. Baer, who also co-created the Simon electronic toy.

As the first of its kind, it was a rather simplistic machine. Its graphics were so crude that they had had to be complemented by plastic overlays and board game trinkets. Its games were sold as circuit boards called "game cards"; however, they did not actually contain data (the Channel F would introduce ROM cartridges years later), working as sets of jumpers to change the machine's behaviors.

Still, it was a new experience, so the machine sold well. Subsequently Magnavox produced the "Odyssey series" of dedicated consoles, and the true successor, the Odyssey². Not only that, the company made a pretty penny on licensing patents to pretty much every other game console maker for the next two decades.

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