Even with the grand amassment of gamers today, most don’t know about it’s original commercial origins, before Atari, Coleco, and of course Nintendo. But before these classic consoles was a premature attempt at household gaming, innovated by Ralph Baer of Magnavox. It was called the Odyssey, and held the keys to an over 20 billion dollar industry. So, what are some interesting tidbits to how it all started? Read below to find out.

It’s line of spiritual successors ended with the panned CDi:

(Pictured)

While the first successor to the Odyssey was the Odyssey² (which focused on a less educational landscape, along with improved joysticks) Magnavox itself was acquired by Phillips as a subsidiary in the early 70’s, shortly after the Magnavox 2’s official release. However, the name change wasn’t fully implemented until the CDi, whose revamping of educational games and shovelware killed whatever momentum the brand had left.

The system had so sound whatsoever:

The system’s original packaging

Another feature introduced when the Odyssey² rolled around was the addition of audio effects, but the first one infamously was bare of this. One of the reasons for this was because the system did not have a processing card for it, and a later move to add it as a peripheral was rejected by Magnavox’s management.

It spent nearly half a decade in development:

Left: prototype, Right: retail version

While the idea was sketched in Baer’s notepad during a bus-ride in the mid 60’s, a prototype wasn’t fully developed until December of the next year. (that being 66) After that, further work was being done to get the system in the right place, and it then spent two years looking for a company willing to give it the retail license. (which Magnavox did exclusively in their stores)

It’s original price was a measly $20:

One of the pack-in games on the system

Adjusted for inflation, the Magnavox Odyssey launched at around $500, but initial prototypes had a far cheaper goal in mine. This was cut during the continuous development cycles, as it was realized that so much would be taken away from the system that it would not be accessible to a mainstream audience. While the final release was a much more luxury item, it paved the way far significantly than a insufficient version.

Without the system, there may have been no Pong:

A staple of early 70’s, Pong was simply an expanded idea upon one of the original games that was included on the Odyssey. The original origins of this go all the way back to a radar modification titled Tennis for Two, but it’s easy to say that Pong was the final incarnation of this.