The Magnavox Odyssey is recognised as the world’s first home videogame console. The idea was conceived in 1966 by inventor Ralph Baer who worked with a technician at Sanders Associates, a defence contractor, to create a box that would plug into a television screen to play games.

The product design was refined by the in-house team, with art by Bradford/Cout Design. This design studio also developed games for the machine, building on the work of Baer and his team. The machine can only have 2 player- controlled dots, plus one machine-controlled dot and a single line of varying height, with no sound. The machine boasts 12 games in the box, operated by cards that connect different circuits in the main machine. The first is a classic pong-type tennis game. In order to make more styles of play a series of plastic overlays are included, which cling to the television’s screen via static, featuring different art to reflect game content, such as a tennis court, a haunted house, and a roulette wheel. Gameplay is also augmented via various other tools, including play money, cards, and dice.

After successful tests in different parts of the country, Magnavox doubled their production run for the first year of release, 1972, from 50,000 to 100,000 units. However, it was only sold via Magnavox distributors which limited availability, and pricing was also a major factor at $100, which adjusted for inflation in 2021 would be about $665. About 69,000 units were sold in the first year, just enough to convince the company to keep supporting it for another couple of holiday seasons.

Altogether, it reportedly sold around 350, 000 units. Meanwhile new gaming systems were developed by other manufacturers, and arcade games took off with Atari’s Pong, certainly building on Baer’s concept.