A Brief History of Game Console Warfare

conq writes "BusinessWeek has a gallery on the history of console wars. Starting with the 1972 Magnavox Odyssey, all the way to the 2006 Wii. The details on the Magnavox Odyssey: 'This is where it all began. Game guru Ralph Baer's invention for Magnavox brought video gaming out of the arcades and into the living room. As the first home video game console, the Odyssey had no audio output and could only display black and white images. But the system came with translucent TV screen overlays to simulate full-color graphics in games like tennis and hockey. The Odyssey's sales were less than impressive: Magnavox had sold about 350,000 units by 1975.'"

Comments

Re:To riff on PA

[talis9]

But Riff's not on http://www.penny-arcade.com/, he's on Sluggy Freelance http://www.sluggy.com/!

Re:Would Mario's Mansion have improved sales inste

[DDLKermit007]

I fail to see where Nintendo made a mistake with the Gamecube. They made tons of money off of it from day one, while the competitors never made a profit off of their offerings.

Re:*shakes head*

[werewolf1031]

While some of the more "mundane" hardware may have been rebranded, the Microsoft Sidewinder was most definitely not rebranded hardware, and it came out about six years before the XBox. The Sidewinder flight stick was manufactured exclusively for Microsoft. Sure, it didn't hold up too well in comparison to Logitech's legendary Wingman series of flight sticks from the 90's, nevermind the high-end gear from Thrustmaster, but it hardly counts as "rebranded"... unless you also count the various components manufactured by companies other than Microsoft for the XBox and XBox 360 as "rebranded", which is rather absurd since they're not made for anyone else.

So yes, the article is mistaken in that respect.