The Magnavox Odyssey was the world's first commercially sold home video game console. It designed by Ralph Baer and released in the US in May, 1972. The system was distributed in Japan in 1975 by a company called Nintendo, before it moved into the electronic gaming industry itself.
The Magnavox Odyssey used a type of removable circuit card that inserted into a slot similar to a cartridge slot. These cartridges did not contain the game information, but had a series of jumpers that interconnected different logic and signal generators in order to produce the desired game on the screen. The console was sold with translucent plastic overlays that gamers could put on their TV screen to simulate colour graphics, along with score sheets and plastic game tokens to help keep score, much like traditional board games.
The Odyssey also supported an add-on peripheral, a light gun used for games such as Dogfight and Shooting Gallery. This gun detected light from the TV screen in order to register a 'hit'. Although the Odyssey lacked sound capability, this was corrected with the release of Magnavox's own Odyssey-labelled Pong consoles several years later.
Games
In addition to the games provided with the console, customers could purchase additional games, with a total of 11 cartridges available. Games included:
Favourites (IE)
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