Odessey 1 (was Re: Fw: Game console up to $200)

Actually, it does. Read below. Actually, it's the opposite. People just didn't do focus groups for these types of products, and the fact that Magnavox didn't change it's marketing the entire 2 years it was being sold show's it's lack of attempt at this type of idea. It was unheard of, and to Magnavox at the time would be no different than doing a focus group for a new TV antenna. It wasn't considered a major product purchase like a television - something they would consider spending the money on product placement research for. It was considered a television accessory. Just another example of the cost cutting and lack of forsight on it - the Odyssey prototype that Ralph built was originally in *color*. (In fact last time I talked to him, he was in the middle of restoring it to display color again.) Maganvox was the one that decided to go with black and white to cut costs. Again, you don't have to take my word for it, talk to Ralph himself or ask any of the major Odyssey and Pong collectors (such as David Winter). People thought it was only for Magnavox because Magnavox *didn't* know how to market it and *didn't* care to change it. The history of the Odyssey is legendary for this fact. You're infusing a market view and practice common in the video game industry (and others) today that just didn't exist back then. There was no industry at the time. What prompted sales of the original Odyssey were it's novelty effect and it's tennis game. Why the tennis game? Because of the success Atari was generating with it's Pong coin-op in the arcades at the same time. The actual video game industry (from a modern consumer standpoint) didn't start until '75 when Atari started it's consumer division and pong consoles (Magnavox did as well with the Odyssey 100, which just played it's tennis game) literally started pushing video game consoles as a consumer product of their own (under the Sears Tele-games label). Then with the influx of Warner money, marketing and advertising in 1976 you had the stakes raised to the level of big business (which is where you have focus groups and other such practices come in). Atari created the modern video game industry, and Nintendo perfected it's in the mid to late 80's. Yes, but these (including the 2600) are much later products. Warner was a major media studio that brought that level of marketing to Atari and the industry for instance (including commercials, movie appearances, etc.). Before that, they just didn't exist in the video game and coin-op industry. People didn't test market pong consoles. There was a sort of test market of coin-ops before that, but that usually just involved setting up a coin-op in an arcade location and seeing how much money it earned at the end of a few weeks. No concerted "focus group" type effort. The sold for about $100 at the time. Marty