Today I am kicking off my first major series The History of Video Game Consoles. Video Games have become a huge industry and there was a time when you couldn't play them in your own home. Then came Video Game Consoles for your home and many different consoles have come out over the past 45 to 50 years. So I will be covering the major consoles and companies of each console generation, that have made the video game industry what it is today.

The Brown Box

Ralph Baer who was working at a defense company in the late 1960's had a crazy idea that there could be more to television than just watching it. He believed there could be some way for people to interact with the Television. He and some engineers he worked with at the defense company, designed one of the first ever video game consoles and they called it the Brown Box.

The Brown Box was the first multiplayer and multi-program video game system. The Brown Box is most known for its classic ping pong game. A cool thing about the Brown Box is that it came with overlays you would put on your television screen to make the game seem more real. Ralph Baer never commercially released the console by himself but he did license the console to Magnavox. Ralph Baer is considered to be the father of video game consoles. Baer was awarded with the National Medal of Technology by President George W. Bush, for "groundbreaking and pioneering creation, development and commercialization of interactive video games".

First Generation of Major Consoles

The Magnavox Odyssey (1972)

The Magnavox Odyssey was the first Commercially released video game console ever. The console is a re-skinned Brown Box developed by Magnavox. Playing video games in your home was new concept in the 1970's and it did not take off quite yet with the Odyssey. It is partially Magnavox's fault for slow sales because of their poor marketing. The only place you could get an Odyssey was from a Magnavox dealer. This marketing strategy also gave many people the misconception of the Odyssey can only work with Magnavox TVs. The console costed around $100 back then which is equivalent to over $500 dollars now.

The Controllers on the Odyssey were very simple and very large. There was a reset button on the top of the controller to reset whatever game you are playing. There is also two knobs on each side of the controller, which controlled the paddle. The right knob handled the vertical controls while the left controlled the paddle horizontally.

The Magnavox Odyessey had released a total of 28 games for the console. The most popular would be Table Tennis and Simon Says. Magnavox later sewed other video game companies at the time like Atari and Coleco for copying their ping pong game. Magnavox won all of the lawsuits because they had created and released the game first.

Overall for the first console released to the public the Magnavox Odyssey was a nice machine. The sales lacked for it being a new idea and from poor marketing strategies. Magnavox sold around 300,000 units and discontinued the console in 1975.

Atari Pong (1975)

Many people when they look back they think the Atari made the first video game console. Well it wasn't, that was the Magnavox Odyssey. People think that Pong was the first because it was the first widely successful video game console. In its first Christmas season in 1975 it sold 150,000 units.

Pong is a simple console with a single switch and two knobs on it. The consoles only game was based off the classic arcade game pong. It was so successful companies like Telgames and Bally made clone consoles which are exactly the same. There were also many pong sequels like Super Pong and Ultra Pong. Eventually all of the big companies that made pong systems had to pay royalties to Magnavox.

Atari had to pay royalties to Magnavox and Magnavox got the rights to any Atari products that would come out in the next year. So, Atari postponed their projects for that year and would not release anything until after that year. Atari also hid information from Magnavox about their newer projects.

Overall pong was one of Atari's first big successes. This system gave Atari a financial boost to make more arcade games and consoles. This console helped start the legacy of Atari and the video game market as a whole .

Nintendo Color TV-Game 6 (1977)

You might be wondering why you haven't heard of this console before. That is because it was Nintendo's first console and it was only released in Japan. The Color TV-Game 6 was the first console with color. It is called the Nintendo Color TV-Game 6 because it has 6 different games on it, not really. It is said to have hockey, tennis, volleyball, and a couple others but really it was just pong.

This was one of the more interesting pong clones to me because it is Nintendo and they tried to do new things with pong that didn't really work. They had different switches that changed the variation of the pong settings. Which means the color scheme would change and maybe there were weird walls in the middle of the screen to block the ball.

Overall the Nintendo Color TV-Game 6 tried to give pong a new identity but nothing really changed. This system also plays worse than the Atari Pong game. The knobs are weird and the console runs off of batteries. That didn't stop the sales though, Nintendo sold 1 million units of the Color TV-Game 6. This is really cool because it was the first Nintendo console ever and it was a runaway success, no wonder they are still here today.

Who Won the First Ever Console War

These machines came out so early on, the home video game industry was brand new. So there wasn't too many differences in consoles. Most could only play one game and most were clones of another console. But I believe the Magnavox Odyssey was a little a head of its time. It could play multiple games and had cool controller attachments like the light gun. I believe the Magnavox Odyssey is the best console from this generation.

But I believe the Atari Pong was better for the video game industry The Atari Pong was crazy succesful and it had a bunch of successful clones. So Atari and all the companies that made clones were making good money while Magnavox did not because of poor marketing. The Atari also got way more people to play video games in their homes and set up Atari for success in the future.