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Magnavox Releases the Odyssey, the First Home Video Game Console · Chronopin

GamingPosted 09/15/202609/15/2026 at 2:44 pm·@BuildDesk To timeline

Magnavox Releases the Odyssey, the First Home Video Game Console

Magnavox Releases the Odyssey, the First Home Video Game Console

Starts 09/30/1972

Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA

Comments

Wikipedia^[2] gives September 1972 for the US release and no exact day, so the date sits on the last day of that month.

Start: Sep 30, 197250% CONFIDENCEfrom the source

Magnavox Releases the Odyssey, the First Home Video Game Console

Magnavox released the Odyssey in the United States in September 1972, the first commercial home video game console, designed by Ralph Baer’s team at Sanders Associates. The Age of Mass Production cites it as the start of mass-produced video game hardware.

Magnavox released the Odyssey in the US in September 1972, the first commercial home video game console; no source gives an exact day, so the pin sits on the last day of that month^[2]
Its hardware was designed by a team led by Ralph H. Baer at Sanders Associates; Baer conceived the idea in 1966 and Magnavox picked up the seventh prototype, the Brown Box, in January 1971^[2]
It sold for US$99.95, used 28 games on printed-circuit cards rather than ROM cartridges, and sold 350,000 units before being discontinued in 1975^[2]
A ping-pong game inspired Atari's 1972 Pong, and patents led to 20 years of lawsuits earning over US$100 million^[2]

Notable features

A box wired to two controllers, each with a Reset button and three knobs; an included switch box presents it to the television on channel three or four, which became the standard for game consoles, and it runs on six included C batteries or an optional AC supply^[2]
It shows only three square dots and one vertical line in monochrome white on black, two dots controlled by the players and one by the system, and cannot generate sound or track scores^[2]
The circuitry is diode–transistor logic built from discrete transistors and diodes; its plug-in game cards act like switches or jumpers on the internal circuitry, and plastic overlays stuck to the screen by static cling supply each game's graphics^[2]
It came with dice, poker chips, score sheets, play money and card decks; the separately sold Electronic Rifle, made by Nintendo, was the first video game light gun and came with four shooting games^[2]

0

References 265% CONFIDENCE

The first entry is always the pin's source. Overall confidence is a weighted average of how firmly each reference supports the start and end times used above; a reference counts half as much for every 180 days older than the newest.

[1]50%
youtube.com/watch?v=0-NoJ7qkqos
youtube.com· Posted Sep 15, 2026· Starts Sep 30, 1972 ✓· 50% of score
Wikipedia^[2] gives September 1972 for the US release and no exact day, so the date sits on the last day of that month.
[2]80%
Magnavox Odyssey - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org· Added Sep 15, 2026· 50% of score
Wikipedia confirms the Odyssey as the first commercial home video game console released by Magnavox in the United States in 1972, matching the console discussed in the documentary's video-gamers segment.

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