Odyssey series
series of home video game consoles

Magnavox Odyssey is the general brand name of Magnavox's complete line of home video game consoles released from 1972 through 1978. The line includes the original Magnavox Odyssey console, the Magnavox Odyssey series of dedicated home video game consoles, and the Magnavox Odyssey 2, a ROM cartridge-based video game console released in 1978. Philips Odyssey is the brand name that includes the Philips Odyssey series of dedicated home video game consoles.
Magnavox sold a total of 1,773,918 units across the entire Odyssey brand between 1972 and 1981 with a total sales value of around $71,300,000.00. Nearly half of those sales occurred between August 1972 and September 1976 with total sales at that time being around $45,000,000.00 selling 800,000 units.
Magnavox Odyssey (1972)
The Magnavox Odyssey, released by Magnavox in September 1972, is the world's first commercial video game console. Designed by Ralph H. Baer and first demonstrated on a convention in Burlingame, California on May 24, 1972, it was sold by Magnavox and affiliates through 1975. The Odyssey uses a type of removable printed circuit board card that inserts into a cartridge slot, allowing the player to select the unit's various games by connecting different paths along the unit's internal logic circuitry. They do not contain any programming.
Magnavox Odyssey series (1975–1977)
There are eight dedicated home video game consoles and one TV with a built-in game console in the Odyssey series.
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This entry incorporates text from “Odyssey series” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.