50 Products That Changed The World

[rolenta]

The current issue of Playboy is it's 50th Anniversary Issue. It features an
article called "50 Products That Changed The World". The number 7 product
(right behind Silicone breast implants) is the Odyssey. Here's what it says:

7 - Magnavox Odyssey game console (1972)
It cost a whopping $100 and enabled you to maneuver a white dot on a black TV screen. By using different overlays that fit right onto the tube, you
turned the maneuvering of this white dot into Ping-Pong. Or tennis. Or
hockey. Why communicate with others? Why sleep? Why go outside? Americans bought 80,000 Odysseys the year they went on sale, sparking a video game craze that has yet to die down. The first generation of emasculated computer geeks had ben born.

By the way, the number 1 product was the Apple Macintosh.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

I'm surprised either of those two made the list. But if they're going to insist on putting the Mac and Odyssey in the same list, I'd argue that they should swap spots on that list. Without the Odyssey kick-starting the video game craze in the home, the demand for personal computers, while it probably still would have happened, might have been delayed by several years. Y'know, if we're going to go into speculative historical scenarios here.

In short: the Mac and other home computers owe much to the Odyssey for putting a bug in the public's ear about having a computer-based device in the home, hooked up to the TV. Therefore, the Odyssey is arguably more historically significant. But by the same reasoning, Tennis For Two at the Brookhaven National Laboratory is even more significant than the Odyssey.

I could go on all day about this, and not just because I like to give Baer due credit. :D

[Sotenga]

The Odyssey HAS to be number one. This is an injustice. If not for the Odyssey, none of us would be here. Digital Press would be non-existent. Baer didn't know what he was going to bring forth on the world with his meager little invention. This is now the year of 2003... look how video games have evolved. Were it not for Ralph and his console, Digital Press, emulators, the Belmont famliy, the Vic Viper, and Dan Hibiki would have never graced the world with their presence. Yeah, it's pretty much number one to all of us.

Hugh Heffner is as dumbfounded on video games as he is impotent. There's no Viagra within walking distance either. And that's the end of that chapter!

http://www.planetquake.com/gargoyle/pwned.gif

[rolenta]

In short: the Mac and other home computers owe much to the Odyssey for putting a bug in the public's ear about having a computer-based device in the home, hooked up to the TV. Therefore, the Odyssey is arguably more historically significant. But by the same reasoning, Tennis For Two at the Brookhaven National Laboratory is even more significant than the Odyssey.

I don't agree. I think that Higinbotham's tennis simulation was merely a footnote in videogame history and made no impact at all outside of videogame history. It was merely a conversation piece at the Brookhaven Labs and anyone who never visited the Labs never even heard of it. The Odyssey was much more siginificant being the first videogame to actually get into people's homes.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

I can see that argument re: Tennis For Two...too. Then again, all sorts of folks, including Nolan Bushnell, would also put the Odyssey into the "footnote" category, so I was just trying to be fair to everyone. :)

Y'know, I even would've been able to stomach the 2600 or Pong, either home or arcade, being on that list instead of the Odyssey - either one would still merit a place of greater significance than the Mac. Although the 2600 would be toeing the line there, as the first personal computers were starting to edge into the picture at that time. I'd have an easier time putting Pong on that pedestal if I couldn't put the Odyssey there.

I use a Mac at work all the time, and it's quite significant to me as well...for crashing all the bloody time. But I digress. ;)

[rolenta]

Then again, all sorts of folks, including Nolan Bushnell, would also put the Odyssey into the "footnote" category

Nolan Bushnell also mentioned at CGE that he did indeed see the Odyssey, but by the time he saw it it was already a failure. I don't know how it could have been since he saw it before it had even been released.