Odyssey series
Magnavox Odyssey is the general brand name of Magnavox's complete line of home video game consoles released from 1972 through 1978. The line includes the original Magnavox Odyssey console, the Magnavox Odyssey series of dedicated home video game consoles, and the Magnavox Odyssey 2, a ROM cartridge-based video game console released in 1978. Philips Odyssey is the brand name that includes the Philips Odyssey series of dedicated home video game consoles.
Magnavox sold a total of 1,773,918 units across the entire Odyssey brand between 1972 and 1981 with a total sales value of around $71,300,000.00. Nearly half of those sales occurred between August 1972 and September 1976 with total sales at that time being around $45,000,000.00 selling 800,000 units.
Magnavox Odyssey (1972)
The Magnavox Odyssey, released by Magnavox in September 1972, is the world's first commercial video game console. Designed by Ralph H. Baer and first demonstrated on a convention in Burlingame, California on May 24, 1972, it was sold by Magnavox and affiliates through 1975. The Odyssey uses a type of removable printed circuit board card that inserts into a cartridge slot, allowing the player to select the unit's various games by connecting different paths along the unit's internal logic circuitry. They do not contain any programming.Magnavox Odyssey series (1975–1977)
There are eight dedicated home video game consoles and one TV with a built-in game console in the Odyssey series. All of these consoles were released in the US by Magnavox after its purchase by Philips in 1974.Magnavox Odyssey 100
The Magnavox Odyssey 100 dedicated console was announced in the Spring of 1975 with first shipments on October 30 and a launch price of $99.95, although pricing dropped quickly with pricing listed at $80 by June 1976 and by Christmas of 76 as low as $39.95. It uses a multi-chip discrete component design, which makes it much simpler than all later dedicated consoles Magnavox would eventually release. Magnavox already had a single-chip design in mind that year, but wanted to have a product they could release immediately if Texas Instruments, the supplier of their single video game chips, was unable to deliver in a timely manner.The Odyssey 100 was designed around four Texas Instruments chips. It has two games. Neither game had on-screen scoring and the system used a crude buzzer for sound. The Odyssey 100 is powered by either six "C" batteries or a 9 volt AC adapter. Each player had three knobs for horizontal movement, vertical movement and ball trajectory adjustment.
Magnavox Odyssey 200
The Magnavox Odyssey 200 dedicated console was released in 1975 as a deluxe companion of the Odyssey 100. Marketed at the same time as the Odyssey 100, it began shipping units on November 12, 1975 at $129.95. Using the same TI multi-chip design, but adding 2 chips, the console improved on the Odyssey 100 in several areas. In addition to Tennis and Hockey, the Odyssey 200 featured a third game variation called "Smash". The Odyssey 200 was also the first dedicated system to feature an option for four on-screen paddles instead of the customary two. The game manual, as well as Magnavox's service documentation describe this as an option for two or four "players," although the console itself can only be physically operated by two persons; consequently, the 200 is frequently and erroneously described as a "four-player" console today. The Odyssey 200 also added a unique method of non-digital on-screen scoring in which a white rectangle moved one space to the right each time a player scored a point. Like the Odyssey 100, the Odyssey 200 is powered by either six "C" batteries or a 9 volt AC adapter and uses three control dials for vertical and horizontal movement and ball "english."Magnavox Odyssey 300
The Magnavox Odyssey 300 dedicated console, announced in May 1976, it was released in October for US$69. Unlike Magnavox's previous two dedicated console products, the Odyssey 300 was meant to compete directly with the Coleco Telstar. Like the Telstar, the Odyssey 300 uses the AY-3-8500 chip as its logic and was among the first dedicated consoles to use a single IC chip as the focus of its design rather than multiple computer chips or transistor–transistor logic. The Odyssey 300 has the same three games as the Odyssey 200, although, owing to its usage of the AY-3-8500, their gameplay more closely resembles Atari's Pong than Magnavox's previous games; horizontal control was absent, ball angle was automated, and the games are controlled with a single dial instead of three. Unlike the 200, the Odyssey 300 console has three difficulty levels: Novice, Intermediate, and Expert. Also owing to its implementation of the AY-3-8500, the 300 introduced digital on-screen scoring.Magnavox Odyssey 400
The Magnavox Odyssey 400 dedicated console was released in 1976 for $100. The Odyssey 400 is an updated version of the Odyssey 200 with automatic serve and on-screen digital scoring features added. The console plays the same three games as the Odyssey 200—Squash, Tennis, and Hockey—and has the same three control dials for vertical movement, horizontal movement, and "english" control. An additional Texas Instruments chip was used to implement on-screen scoring; the mechanical score sliders of the 200 were dispensed with.Magnavox Odyssey 500
The Magnavox Odyssey 500 was released in 1976 for $130 as Magnavox's high-end companion to the Odyssey 300 and Odyssey 400 systems. The Odyssey 500 is essentially a deluxe version of the Odyssey 400 with several crucial improvements. The 500 featured color graphics and replaced the standard paddles with sprites representing the athletes of its various games: a tennis player, a squash player, and a hockey player. The three players and three playfields were each chosen by separate toggle switches; games were thus selected by matching the player to its appropriate playfield. In addition to the Smash, Hockey, and Tennis games, Odyssey 500 featured a fourth game, Soccer, by using the squash player graphics with the hockey playing field. Unlike the Odyssey 400, however, the 500 does not support four onscreen "players."The Odyssey 500's manual acknowledged that the player graphics, being of different sizes, essentially represented different difficulty options. Interestingly, while Magnavox exploited the "mismatching" of players and playfields to market the Odyssey 500 as having a fourth game, the remaining five possible game combinations were not advertised or documented.
Odyssey 500 offers automatic serve, displays digital on-screen scores between plays, and provides manually adjustable ball speed control. As with all previous Odyssey units, power is delivered via an AC adapter or six "C" cell batteries.