Magnavox released the Magnavox Odyssey, the first commercial home video game console, in 1972.
The system grew from experiments by Ralph H. Baer and his team at Sanders Associates, who developed a device that could display interactive images on a household television. Magnavox completed the product and launched it in the United States in September 1972, beginning the first generation of home consoles.
The Odyssey used simple circuitry rather than a programmable processor. Its screen displayed a few monochrome shapes, and players used wired controllers with knobs. Magnavox supplied plastic screen overlays, cards, dice, play money, and other accessories to turn the basic visuals into different games. The system offered 28 games, including a ping-pong game.
That ping-pong game is central to a frequently misunderstood part of video-game history. Atari’s Pong was an arcade game, not the first home console, and its designer Allan Alcorn developed it after Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell had seen an Odyssey demonstration. Magnavox later pursued patent claims related to the game’s underlying concepts.