Magnavox

Magnavox ( Latin for " loud voice ") is an electronics company that is one of Philips since 1974. Particularly well known Magnavox was the development of the first video game console.

Foundation

Magnavox was founded in 1917 by Edwin Pridham and Peter L. Jensen. Pridham and Jensen 1915 had together developed a voice coil speakers, therefore, derives its name Magnavox.

Entry into the video game market

The mid-1960s developed Ralph Baer and a small staff engineer, the first video game console. They called the system easy Home TV games. In 1968 she got it the first video game patent. The console included some games, among others, Ping pong, football and volleyball.

In a demonstration of the Home TV Games Bill Bender saw the system and was thrilled. As Bender's 1970 vice-president of Magnavox was, he pushed through the licensing of the console, which then saw the light of day in 1972 under the name Odyssey.

The system was very simple, it could only represent points. But there was plenty of free gifts, such as templates, which were glued to the television to represent the field of play or a block to record the score.

There around 350,000 units were sold. For Magnavox a rather disappointing result, you had the device but with a large advertising campaign introduced on the market (including with Frank Sinatra ).

Odyssey II

In 1978, the Odyssey II However, the device was already at the appearance did not suggest the prior period and paragraphs lot to be desired. Only in Europe (as Philips Videopac G7000 ) had the Odyssey II great success. A total of about one million units have been sold so far behind Magnavox was Atari. After that Odyssey III was developed, but never reached the production stage.

Magnavox withdrew from the video game market and refocused on the development of home theater systems. Since the Magnavox Odyssey console, but with the same time had the patent for video game machines, many processes were later performed against various companies that all were recovered. Inter alia Magnavox received $ 700,000 from Atari.

Innovations

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