AVGN reviews the Odyssey 1

[Artlover]

Oh, I'm not saying or claiming Nolan is any saint and that he didn't borrow ideas.

 

What I'm saying is: Besides the abstract, how is Odyssey & Pong the same?

 

Besides, technicaly, Baer didn't even invent the concept of "Television gaming apparatus". THAT would actually be T.T Goldsmith Jr. in 1947 and his "Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device".

 

http://patimg2.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=024559...View+first+page

 

[Herbarius]

Nolan's funniest has to be when he stated that the Odyssey was already a failure when he saw it in Spring of '72. However it's hard for a console to fail on the market before its even been released!

Maybe he didn't mean "failure" in a commercial sense. Like he said "I felt it was not a satisfactory game device."

[Artlover]

Maybe he didn't mean "failure" in a commercial sense. Like he said "I felt it was not a satisfactory game device."

No argument here!

[Atarifever]

Nolan's funniest has to be when he stated that the Odyssey was already a failure when he saw it in Spring of '72. However it's hard for a console to fail on the market before its even been released!

Maybe he didn't mean "failure" in a commercial sense. Like he said "I felt it was not a satisfactory game device."

He thought it was satisfactory enough to steal.

[Retro Rogue]

Besides, technicaly, Baer didn't even invent the concept of "Television gaming apparatus". THAT would actually be T.T Goldsmith Jr. in 1947 and his "Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device".

 

http://patimg2.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=024559...View+first+page

 

 

Wow, completely off base there. That patent shows nothing of the sort, and was never intended in the light you're presenting it. In fact, it was thrown out of the courts as prior technology for a television game console when someone else tried to bring it in as evidence. Where's the television and video signal? Presence of a CRT != Television (in fact CRT's were even used as memory devices for a time in the early 50's). That device is an EM device that takes a crt display and directly controls the light gun to directly manipulate a dot on crt surface. Every other aspect is an EM arcade machine, including targets taped to the screen and mechanical collision. You could just as easily replace it with a flashlight and a silk sheet, the crt was that arbitrary to its operation. Its also precisely why Higginbotham and Russel were thrown out by the courts. No video, no video signal.

Edited April 25, 2009 by wgungfu

[Retro Rogue]

Nolan's funniest has to be when he stated that the Odyssey was already a failure when he saw it in Spring of '72. However it's hard for a console to fail on the market before its even been released!

Maybe he didn't mean "failure" in a commercial sense. Like he said "I felt it was not a satisfactory game device."

 

No, he was talking in the commercial sense in this particular interview. He made other (very nonfactual statements) of the type you're mentioning, during testimony in court (when he was called to testify for other companies) and other later interviews.

Edited April 25, 2009 by wgungfu

[Retro Rogue]

Nolan's funniest has to be when he stated that the Odyssey was already a failure when he saw it in Spring of '72. However it's hard for a console to fail on the market before its even been released!

Maybe he didn't mean "failure" in a commercial sense. Like he said "I felt it was not a satisfactory game device."

He thought it was satisfactory enough to steal.

 

 

Yah, even Al Alcorn has admitted already that Nolan specifically stole the game and idea from his Odyssey visit even to go so far as stating Nolan just thought he'd never get caught.

[Artlover]

He thought it was satisfactory enough to steal.

Or we could say he was inspired by a horrible product and made a much improved variant of his own design.

 

If we can get past the Nolan bashing for a second.... Imagine what kind of world we would be living in today if we didn't have people like him doing things like that. What kind of car would you be driving, what kind of computer would you be using, what kind of airplane would you be flying in, what kind of telephone would you be speaking into, what kind of pen would you be writting with?

[Retro Rogue]

He thought it was satisfactory enough to steal.

Or we could say he was inspired by a horrible product and made a much improved variant of his own design.

 

If we can get past the Nolan bashing for a second.... Imagine what kind of world we would be living in today if we didn't have people like him doing things like that. What kind of car would you be driving, what kind of computer would you be using, what kind of airplane would you be flying in, what kind of telephone would you be speaking into, what kind of pen would you be writting with?

 

 

Nobody is bashing anyone regarding advancing technology and products, engineering is almost always done off of previous works. Everything evolves. And Ralph is always the first to state Nolan deserves just as much credit for being father of the video arcade industry and for helping to create the industry we have now (though you can't say Nolan's returned it in kind). On the flip side, imagine what kind of world we'd be living in today with no accountability for one's actions? Oh wait, we were living in that for the past 8 years.

Edited April 25, 2009 by wgungfu

[Herbarius]

He thought it was satisfactory enough to steal.

I thought we all agree he didn't exactly steal it. He was propably inspired by it - maybe unconsciously.

 

But at least he put some effort in it to turn it from an unsatisfactory game into a satisfactory one.

Like seeing someone invented flat Coke (not satisfactory) and figuring out to make it sparkling (hence make it satisfactory).

 

 

Also Baer got his revenge with Simon - which basically was a portable version of an Arcade game made by Atari before. Bear gets most if not all the public credit for it, like Bushnell/Alcorn got the public credit for Pong.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Herbarius

[Retro Rogue]

He thought it was satisfactory enough to steal.

I thought we all agree he didn't exactly steal it. He was propably inspired by it - maybe unconsciously.

 

But at least he put some effort in it to turn it from an unsatisfactory game into a satisfactory one.

Like seeing someone invented flat Coke (not satisfactory) and figuring out to make it sparkling (hence make it satisfactory).

 

No, its already been well established and addressed by all parties involved that he took it directly from the Odyssey. Both in court testimony and interviews. Alcorn has even stated "And Nolan got the idea from that, but it's like the movie The Producers, because he figured we'd rip off the idea for a game, but so what? It's no good, we're not going to sell it, we'll throw it away, so what harm is there, right? So, it didn't work out that way… they sent us a letter. " Nolan has also stated how he saw that one particular game on the odyssey and thought he could improve on it.

 

Also Baer got his revenge with Simon - which basically was a portable version of an Arcade game made by Atari before.

 

Very true.

 

Bear gets most if not all the public credit for it, like Bushnell/Alcorn got the public credit for Pong.

 

I think you'd be hard pressed to ask the average game or person if they remember who the designer of Simon was. Most just remember the game itself. The same certainly can not be said on Pong, almost everyone will state Atari, Nolan, Alcorn, or some combination of the above.

Edited April 25, 2009 by wgungfu

[Herbarius]

The same certainly can not be said on Pong, almost everyone will state Atari, Nolan, Alcorn, or some combination of the above.

I'm not sure that's true. If you ask gamers, people who've invested more-than-average time in video gaming, yes.

 

But if you ask the average guy, they'll propably remember Pong, but not who invented it.

 

 

And especially in the younger generation, I've even known people that consider themselves as "gamers" who would, when asked for the first commercially succesful video game would state something like Tetris or maybe Pac-Man.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Herbarius

[Artlover]

Yeah, you do make a point there. Atleast as far as this time period goes.

 

If you ask some people today what the first video game console was, you'll get people saying NES.

[Retro Rogue]

I'm not sure that's true. If you ask gamers, people who've invested more-than-average time in video gaming, yes.

 

But if you ask the average guy, they'll propably remember Pong, but not who invented it.

 

I really think again, you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere near the coverage of the last 30 years Nolan and Pong vs. Ralph and Simon. Even a google search brings up just 4,100 for "Ralph Baer" simon, and 54,000 for "Nolan Bushnell" pong. Even a search of actual media sources would turn up a far more lopsided presence of one over the other. Ralph's recognition for Simon wasn't until well in to the late 90's thanks to people like Leonard Herman with his book Phoenix. Either way, both men certainly deserve the coverage for their contributions. Ralph with his engineering and design, and Nolan with his sales, marketing, business, and PR practices that shaped the industry.

Edited April 25, 2009 by wgungfu

[Retro Rogue]

Yeah, you do make a point there. Atleast as far as this time period goes.

 

If you ask some people today what the first video game console was, you'll get people saying NES.

 

 

LOL, that's true. For a lot of people, anything before the NES draws blank stares. I had my pre-NES area of the museum at the Midwest Gaming Classic (every console and personal computer from '72 to '85 or so) referred to as the "ghetto area" of the museum by one video reviewer.

Edited April 25, 2009 by wgungfu

[Curt Vendel]

See, Marty you bring up a KEY point in this, everytime Higginbotham is said to have the first "video game" --- He used an Oscilloscope and digital signals - no video involved - it was a computer game, not a video game, so those are summarily thrown out without prejudice.

 

Now, Nolan actually tried to file his own Ball & Paddle patent to CYA on Pong and the court shot him down... this is why I seriously get irked everytime he then will use his universal fallback excuse "Ralph's design was Analog, mine was Digital" WRONG, WRONG and oh... W-R-O-N-G.

 

 

 

 

Curt

 

 

Besides, technicaly, Baer didn't even invent the concept of "Television gaming apparatus". THAT would actually be T.T Goldsmith Jr. in 1947 and his "Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device".

 

http://patimg2.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=024559...View+first+page

 

 

Wow, completely off base there. That patent shows nothing of the sort, and was never intended in the light you're presenting it. In fact, it was thrown out of the courts as prior technology for a television game console when someone else tried to bring it in as evidence. Where's the television and video signal? Presence of a CRT != Television (in fact CRT's were even used as memory devices for a time in the early 50's). That device is an EM device that takes a crt display and directly controls the light gun to directly manipulate a dot on crt surface. Every other aspect is an EM arcade machine, including targets taped to the screen and mechanical collision. You could just as easily replace it with a flashlight and a silk sheet, the crt was that arbitrary to its operation. Its also precisely why Higginbotham and Russel were thrown out by the courts. No video, no video signal.

[GOTHCLAWZ]

I wish I could shoot plasma rays out of my Zapper

[Herbarius]

it was a computer game, not a video game

 

That reads strange btw (YES, I do understand what you meant!), as normally one would see "computer game" as a subset of "video game" and not the other way round...

 

Or maybe that's just me...

Edited April 26, 2009 by Herbarius

[Retro Rogue]

it was a computer game, not a video game

 

That reads strange btw (YES, I do understand what you meant!), as normally one would see "computer game" as a subset of "video game" and not the other way round...

 

Or maybe that's just me...

 

 

No, actually computer games came first. The etymology of "Video game" as a term is descriptive - a term describing the technology, a game that used a television or "video" display and manipulated the television's video signal to play it on. For a while in fact, the term "Video game" and "tv game" were interchangeable. It wasn't until the 80's that just about any game with a display (even hand held electronic games with led's) began being referred to as a "video game" by the media, using it as a catch all phrase. That's actually what's lead to the confusion by the general public, today. Further blurring the line was the fact that early personal computers were also designed to hook up directly to a TV set, so on a technical level they could still qualify as "video" games. Likewise, you had certain court cases where people tried unsuccessfully to blur the lines on "video" which also didn't help matters.

 

On a side note, I think the business previously mentioned about the Odyssey being a "failure" is silly. A failure compared to what? It was the first console on the market, and sold 330,000 units, which is a lot for a brand new and unproven technology - a success. In contrast, the total number of Pong machines Nolan sold during the time was about 38,000 yet he calls PONG a success and Odyssey a "failure". We can take that a step further and say "Ok, maybe people mean a failure compared to consoles that came after it" which would still be silly to compare but I'll bite. Lets do the same argument on Pong (since its considered "successful") vs. Space Invaders, which in this case is 38,000 vs. 160,000+ (100,000 machines in Japan, 60,000 in the US plus unknown in the rest of the world). Using the same logic being applied to the Odyssey's sales, PONG would also be seen as a "failure" even though we know it was not. Once again, it comes down to a concerted effort by certain individuals to downplay others achievement to play up theirs.

Edited April 26, 2009 by wgungfu

[CGQuarterly]

I wish I could shoot plasma rays out of my Zapper

 

Wouldn't that make his butt hurt?

 

Chris

[ovalbugmann]

Man the Odyssey 1 sucked balls!

[+Ransom]

On a side note, I think the business previously mentioned about the Odyssey being a "failure" is silly. A failure compared to what? It was the first console on the market, and sold 330,000 units, which is a lot for a brand new and unproven technology - a success. In contrast, the total number of Pong machines Nolan sold during the time was about 38,000 yet he calls PONG a success and Odyssey a "failure". We can take that a step further and say "Ok, maybe people mean a failure compared to consoles that came after it" which would still be silly to compare but I'll bite. Lets do the same argument on Pong (since its considered "successful") vs. Space Invaders, which in this case is 38,000 vs. 160,000+ (100,000 machines in Japan, 60,000 in the US plus unknown in the rest of the world). Using the same logic being applied to the Odyssey's sales, PONG would also be seen as a "failure" even though we know it was not. Once again, it comes down to a concerted effort by certain individuals to downplay others achievement to play up theirs.

 

I wonder which was more profitable.

Edited April 26, 2009 by Ransom

[Herbarius]

On a side note, I think the business previously mentioned about the Odyssey being a "failure" is silly. A failure compared to what? It was the first console on the market, and sold 330,000 units, which is a lot for a brand new and unproven technology - a success. In contrast, the total number of Pong machines Nolan sold during the time was about 38,000 yet he calls PONG a success and Odyssey a "failure". We can take that a step further and say "Ok, maybe people mean a failure compared to consoles that came after it" which would still be silly to compare but I'll bite. Lets do the same argument on Pong (since its considered "successful") vs. Space Invaders, which in this case is 38,000 vs. 160,000+ (100,000 machines in Japan, 60,000 in the US plus unknown in the rest of the world). Using the same logic being applied to the Odyssey's sales, PONG would also be seen as a "failure" even though we know it was not. Once again, it comes down to a concerted effort by certain individuals to downplay others achievement to play up theirs.

 

I think you should compare the Odyssey to Home Pong, not the Arcade.

[Retro Rogue]

On a side note, I think the business previously mentioned about the Odyssey being a "failure" is silly. A failure compared to what? It was the first console on the market, and sold 330,000 units, which is a lot for a brand new and unproven technology - a success. In contrast, the total number of Pong machines Nolan sold during the time was about 38,000 yet he calls PONG a success and Odyssey a "failure". We can take that a step further and say "Ok, maybe people mean a failure compared to consoles that came after it" which would still be silly to compare but I'll bite. Lets do the same argument on Pong (since its considered "successful") vs. Space Invaders, which in this case is 38,000 vs. 160,000+ (100,000 machines in Japan, 60,000 in the US plus unknown in the rest of the world). Using the same logic being applied to the Odyssey's sales, PONG would also be seen as a "failure" even though we know it was not. Once again, it comes down to a concerted effort by certain individuals to downplay others achievement to play up theirs.

 

I think you should compare the Odyssey to Home Pong, not the Arcade.

 

Not really, unless you're thinking just console to console rather than Nolan's claim of "success vs. failure". In that case, the Odyssey was not a "pong" unit and was not around at the same time to compete against Atari's home PONG. The pong only Odyssey 100 and 200 did however, so you'd have to compare those - they were specifically designed after Magnavox got wind of Atari's work on a home console in Spring of '74, and released to compete when Atari did release theirs in late '75. Once again its context. There was nothing else on the market at the same time as the Odyssey, as for 3 years Odyssey was "the market". The odyssey was then replaced by the scaled down 100 (100,000 units) and 200 (200,000) at the same time as the market expanded via Atari's home pong entry through Sears (Fall 1975), which sold comparatively 150,000 units before being expanded to other models (as did the Odyssey series with the 300, etc.).

Edited April 26, 2009 by wgungfu

[Retro Rogue]

On a side note, I think the business previously mentioned about the Odyssey being a "failure" is silly. A failure compared to what? It was the first console on the market, and sold 330,000 units, which is a lot for a brand new and unproven technology - a success. In contrast, the total number of Pong machines Nolan sold during the time was about 38,000 yet he calls PONG a success and Odyssey a "failure". We can take that a step further and say "Ok, maybe people mean a failure compared to consoles that came after it" which would still be silly to compare but I'll bite. Lets do the same argument on Pong (since its considered "successful") vs. Space Invaders, which in this case is 38,000 vs. 160,000+ (100,000 machines in Japan, 60,000 in the US plus unknown in the rest of the world). Using the same logic being applied to the Odyssey's sales, PONG would also be seen as a "failure" even though we know it was not. Once again, it comes down to a concerted effort by certain individuals to downplay others achievement to play up theirs.

 

I wonder which was more profitable.

 

The Odyssey's probably had a higher profit margin than the PONG machines, considering Atari's was more of a "homebrew" manufacturing process dragging people in off the street, and their continual financial problems. Magnavox was obviously a much more established company, with long established materials resource channels, manufacturing processing, etc.

Edited April 26, 2009 by wgungfu