First generation, 1972 - 1977
America was introduced to the first home video game system on a Sunday night television broadcast hosted by Frank Sinatra. Released by Magnavox and named "Odyssey" this system was little more than a few logic switches, and not considered a microcomputer by the industry. The Odyssey was the result of years of negotiations between Ralph Baer and various players in the television manufacturing industry.
This was not, however, the first time that Americans had seen a videogame. Pong, created by Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn (founder and first employee of Atari), had been around for nearly a year in the arcades. Thus videogames were not new. However, a system to play video games in the privacy of your own home had never been seen before.
Nolan Bushnell was not to be outdone, and with simplicity as his motto, he reproduced his popular arcade Pong for home use. Atari Pong, the home version, consisted of one simple unit. It had built in paddles, a built in speaker, and preprogrammed with Pong. Unlike Baer's Odyssey, which had twelve games built in, separate controllers, and graphic overlays, Atari Pong was considered concise by the video game consumer. At this time, consumers did not feel a need to spend more on a system simply because it had more games. It was a common complaint among consumers that systems with multiple games only had one or two desirable games. Thus, Atari Pong and the over sixty Pong knock-offs, would dominate the market until 1977 when it would be replaced by the VCS, another Atari system. |
