It has been almost half a century now since video game consoles have been released to the general public. An actual take home system, you no longer needed to head down to your local arcade to get your gaming fill. The first home video game system was sold back in 1972. The Odyssey, manufactured by Magnavox, sold for just under $100 US dollars and included 12 different games and overlays; which you would attach to your television screen. Similar to consoles that would later come to market, each game was stored on a game cartridge/card. Some of the games even included came cards or dice. It seems like this was one of the first interactive board games, similar to DVD board games these days. The three different game categories being sports, family/adult and educational. This could have been one of the first versions of an educational video game, which are becoming more and more popular these days. The system also had the capabilities to support an add- on peripheral which used a joystick with a golf ball attached to it which a player would hit with a putter. This seems awfully similar to the controller used for the Wii gaming system. Ultimately, this game and its peripherals were never released to the public, however the original prototype can be found in a museum in New York. Being as the game system was battery powered, the amount of time that a player or players would be able to play a game would have been rather short. Which would more then likely scare some people away.
In the video a tennis game is featured on a game show back in the 70's which looks extremely similar to Pong. Interestingly enough, Pong was released the same year as the Odyssey and was based off of the tennis game that was included in its release. This would later go on to become a law suit between Magnavox and Atari.
Written by,
Adam Zacharias
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.