![]() Its graphics and few color choices, compared to its biggest competitors at the time-the Atari 2600, Mattel's Intellivision and the Bally Astrocade-were its "weakest point". Later, two other games were released in this series, Conquest of the World and The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt, each with its own gameboard. The first game released was Quest for the Rings!, with gameplay somewhat similar to Dungeons & Dragons, and a storyline reminiscent of J. The area that the Odyssey² may be best remembered for was its pioneering fusion of board and video games: The Master Strategy Series. One of the strongest points of the system was its speech synthesis unit, which was released as an add-on for speech, music, and sound effects enhancement. They could be plugged and unplugged from the back of the unit, while all later silver and all black controllers were hardwired into the rear of the unit itself (although the joysticks still can be easily replaced, but not without dismounting the cover deck). One other difference in these controllers is that the earliest releases of the silver joystick were removable. The games, graphics and packaging were designed by Ron Bradford and Steve Lehner. In the upper corner of the joystick was a single 'Action' button, silver on the original controllers and red on the black controllers. Later releases had a similar black controller, with an 8-pointed star-shaped housing for its eight-direction joystick. The Odyssey² used the standard joystick design of the 1970s and early 1980s: the original console had a moderately sized silver controller, held in one hand, with a square housing for its eight-direction stick that was manipulated with the other hand. Unlike any other system at that time, the Odyssey² included a full alphanumeric membrane keyboard, which was to be used for educational games, selecting options, or programming (Magnavox released a cartridge called Computer Intro! with the intent of teaching simple computer programming). ![]() The potential was enormous, as an unlimited number of games could be individually purchased a game player could purchase a library of video games tailored to their own interest. With the Odyssey², each game could be a completely unique experience, with its own background graphics, foreground graphics, gameplay, scoring, and music. The original Odyssey had a number of removable circuit cards that switched between the built-in games. The Videopac G7200, unlike Videopac G7000, had a 9" (23 cm) black & white display built in. ↑ "7 Classic Game Consoles Built Into TV Sets" (in en).↑ ": Magnavox Odyssey 100 Game Console"."Magnavox Odyssey 100 Video Game Obsession". ↑ a b c "Magnavox Odyssey 100 Teardown".↑ "Pong-Story: Other Magnavox Odyssey systems"."North American Phillips Seeks Magnavox Shares (Published 1974)". ↑ "The Ultimate Odyssey^2 and Odyssey^3 FAQ".This was part of a small trend aimed at a niche market where specific models of television sets were integrated with a specific model of game console, typically for the purpose of saving space, making setup easier, or adding a sales point to a television model at the cost of increased expense and lower reliability. Previously scorekeeping on Odyssey consoles had been an exercise left to the player.Ī different version of the Odyssey 300 that was built into a television set was also sold. The 1976 Odyssey 300 offered an improved experience with the ability to display game scores on screen. The system can play either Tennis or Hockey and can generate sound, a notable feature which was not a given in video games at the time. ![]() Uniquely, the system uses cardboard shielding internally, instead of more durable materials or materials that offered improved radio frequency properties. The system was built in the USA with a simple single layer circuit board and four Texas Instruments integrated circuits. The Magnavox Odyssey 100 was released in 1975. The Odyssey series of consoles were followed by the Magnavox Odyssey², a far more capable console capable of running software on cartridges.Īs more models were released, significant technical improvements were made, though these improvements were mostly iterative rather than groundbreaking. The last Magnavox Odyssey series consoles were released in 1977 and the last Philips Odyssey console was released in 1978. Unlike the original Odyssey which attempted to offer games from sports to a haunted mansion, Odyssey series consoles stuck to popular sports games. This series of consoles began to be released in 1975 as cheaper dedicated consoles with built in games, as opposed to the original Odyssey's ability to play multiple games via jumper cards. The Odyssey series was a follow up to the original Magnavox Odyssey console made following the acquisition of Magnavox by Philips in 1974.
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