Hi there...
I just thought I should clarify that the Magnavox Odyssey was in fact the
FIRST programmable cartridge based (they were actually circuit cards) home
videogame system. Nolan Bushnell previewed this system in Burlingame in
1972 and essentially ripped it off to create Pong. There was also the
Fairchild Channel F programmable system which preceeded the Atari VCS by at
least a year.
xoxo van
>>> Video game crash of '83? Would you please explain?
>
>> In the early 80s there was a home video game boom started by the home game
>> PONG and all it's clones then Atari produced one of the first popular
>> cartridge programmable games, the 2600. Not soon after that there were
>> probably a dozen competitors including Matell (Intellivisaion), Magnavox
>> (Oddesy), Balley (Astrocade), etc. By about 1983 there was a major glut of
>> game machines and cartridges, too many to support the market...
>
>> Then the bottom fell out around 1983 with the avent of cheaper home
>>computers
>> with just as good (if not better) game playing ability, which started
>> capturing the attenetion of the masses and the gamers stopped buying video
>> games in favor of computers, many of the game companies were hit REALLY hard
>> and some folded. Of course this was the start of the home computer
>>wars. :)
>> Some were able to 're-tool' for home computer games and did quite well.
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Received on Mon Jul 06 1998 - 12:38:47 BST