Odyssey2
- 1978-1983
- Also known as the Phillips Videopac G7000
"The Ultimate Video Game System"
System History
Magnavox started the video game revolution in 1972 with the release of the Odyssey, the world's first home video game system. For the next five years, the company released a number of standalone consoles in the Odyssey line, giving them numerical suffixes like Odyssey 100, Odyssey 400, and so on. Finally, in 1977, Magnavox signaled a new generation of Odyssey by announcing the Odyssey², a dedicated unit that was to contain 24 games and accommodate four simultaneous players. However, the bottom was quickly dropping out of the over-saturated dedicated console market, and Magnavox scrapped the 24-game Odyssey² in favor of an expandable cartridge-based model. The company released it in 1978, touting it as "The Ultimate Computer Video Game System."
The Odyssey²
The Odyssey² supported one sound channel and its graphics consisted primarily of several characters built into its internal ROM code, which gave almost all the games a similar appearance. Its maximum screen resolution was smaller and its player sprites larger than other comparable systems, giving most of its games a somewhat blocky look. However, Odyssey² graphics were sharp and its animation fluid, with no trace of the screen flicker that was usually seen on competing consoles. The Odyssey² also contained Intel's very first mass-market microprocessor, the 8048.
The Odyssey² had one significant advantage over other systems: a built-in 49-key membrane keyboard. Coming at the beginning of the home computer revolution as it did, the keyboard was a strong selling point for the console. Ads for the Odyssey² exclaimed "The Keyboard is the Key," referring to its potential for increased game options and educational software. The keyboard primarily appealed to parents because it could be used for educational games, of which the Odyssey² has several. The keyboard was also used for game selection, game configuration, programming mazes, and entering names or initials for high scores.
Odyssey² joysticks consist of a large box-like base that can be held in one hand or placed on a tabletop. The stick is a slim silver metal shaft tipped with a plastic knob. Each joystick sports one fire button labeled "ACTION." Odyssey² joysticks were responsive, fairly well constructed and generally well liked. Unfortunately, on most models of the console, the joysticks were plugged inside of the unit. This not only meant that broken joysticks could not be easily replaced outside of a Magnavox service center, but that customized controllers and other input devices were impractical.
In the United States, the Odyssey² managed to achieve a moderate level of success, at least in its early years. By the early 1980s, however, it had fallen behind in sales to the Atari 2600 and Mattel Intellivision. It was basically the "third place system" of the early 1980s.
Games
Probably the most interesting thing about Odyssey² software was that about half of the games were written by one man: Ed Averett, a former Intel salesman who started writing Odyssey² games after the other Magnavox designers started running out of ideas. He wrote twenty-four games in four years. He's been interviewed extensively in Halcyon Days, a collection of interviews with classic game programmers.
The best known Odyssey² game is K.C. Munchkin!. It was designed to play like Pac-Man, but to be different enough so as not to violate any copyright laws. Magnavox was sued anyway (by Atari, who owned the home rights to Pac-Man) because K.C. beat Atari's port of Pac-Man to market and was selling pretty well to boot. The first ruling by the Federal court in Chicago ruled that K.C. had not violated any copyright laws, since the code was all original, there were significant "creative differences," and "No one would ever buy K.C. and think he was buying Pac-Man." Magnavox exulted after the favorable ruling and prepared to redouble their efforts in selling videogames. Atari appealed the decision, but Magnavox's legal department felt that the lower court's ruling was so strong and the case so solid that Atari had no chance. However, the appellate court overturned the decision, Atari won, and Magnavox's plans to dominate the market never came to fruition. Magnavox had to stop selling K.C., which severely hurt the company because the game had made more money in two months than any other Odyssey² game made in one year. The short-lived success of K.C. Munchkin! did seem to inspire Magnavox (and North American Philips, Magnavox's parent), however, and they proceeded to create many of the best Odyssey² games from that time forward, like Killer Bees!, Turtles!, K.C.'s Krazy Chase, and Attack of the Timelord!.
There were very few third-party Odyssey² games, the only licensees being Parker Brothers and Imagic. Since the Odyssey² market share was much smaller than that of other systems, third-party developers didn't exactly jump at the chance to develop games for it. Parker Brothers didn't even release its Odyssey² games in the United States, due to the system's smaller market. Imagic did, however, release their popular Demon Attack and Atlantis games in the U.S.
Odyssey²'s most original achievement was the release of the Master Strategy series of games. These were special expanded memory cartridges which incorporated game boards, keyboard overlays, and playing pieces into their gameplay. The results were three engrossing games with a unique style of play that hasn't really been duplicated anywhere else. The Master Strategy games are The Quest for the Rings, Conquest of the World and The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt. A fourth Master Strategy game, Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, was programmed but never released. The other notable Odyssey² game series, the Challenger Series, consisted of several arcade-style action games. Together, the Challenger and Master Strategy Series comprise the best the Odyssey² has to offer.
In the late 1990s, John Dondzila released the first "homebrewed" Odyssey² game, AMOK!. It is a Berzerk clone and is available on his web site, along with his excellent Odyssey² Multicart.
Other Countries
By 1980, Magnavox had become a subsidiary of North American Philips (NAP), a Dutch electronics conglomerate. As a result, Philips released the European equivalent of the Odyssey² (the Videopac G7000) under its own company name. The Phillips Videopac G7000 was more successful than its American counterpart. There were many different versions of the system around the world, and one version (the G7200) even had a built-in monitor.
The G7000 inspired a larger following and enjoyed a longer life span in Europe than the Odyssey² ever had in the U.S. As a result, more games were created for the European market. If anything, the console enjoyed an even greater following when it was released in Brazil, where it was called simply the Odyssey. Brazil was treated to practically the entire release library of both the U.S. and Europe, and received a couple of exclusive titles (Clay Pigeon! and Comando Noturno!) as well.
Accessories
The most significant accessory for the Odyssey² was "The Voice," a module which added voice and sound to certain games. The most famous Voice game was Type & Tell, a cartridge which phonetically pronounced (or tried to) any word that a player typed in. Of course most players spent countless hours typing in certain four-letter words that we won't mention here. In other games, The Voice shouted out encouraging phrases after a successful play, or insults whenever a player screwed up. Two special educational games, Sid the Spellbinder and Nimble Numbers Ned, were released for use with The Voice module as well.
The Voice module never made it outside of the United States; however, Europeans were treated to two add-on modules that were not available in other parts of the world. These accessories included the Videopac C7010 Chess Module, which was a cartridge with an attached computer module (because the G7000 didn't have enough memory on its own to run a chess game). There was also the Home Computer Module, an add-on that allowed Videopac owners to program in Microsoft's BASIC language. Although this module was not released outside of Europe, Odyssey² owners could purchase a Computer Intro! cartridge to program in Assembley language.
The End
In 1983, the introduction of next-generation systems, coupled with the fading of the videogame market in general, pretty much put an end to the Odyssey². Philips announced that they'd be developing their own next-generation 8-bit system, codenamed the Odyssey³, and later dubbed the Odyssey Command Center. The Command Center was to have more memory, better graphics, and a redesigned, more computer-like keyboard. A voice synthesizer and a 300-baud modem were in the planning stages, and it was shown at the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show. It was to be fully backward-compatible with the Odyssey² and it would play specially enhanced versions of certain Odyssey² titles. Unfortunately, it was never released. At least, that's what most Americans thought until 1995, when an American game collector discovered that a redesigned Command Center and a handful of cartridges had been released and sold for a limited time in 1983. It was sold only in Europe, and was called the Philips Videopac + G7400. It was never very popular, and as a result the G7400 is difficult to find today. Online commerce sites like eBay have made them less hard to come by than they once were, however.
Phillips/Magnavox didn't get into the videogame business again until the release of the CD-I in 1992. Marketed as a multimedia entertainment device (with games, interactive movies and the like), the system didn't seem to do anything particularly well (game consoles had better games, computers had better reference and educational titles, etc.) and never gained a foothold in the market. By the time it was discontinued, CD-I had lost millions of dollars.
Emulation
There's only one Odyssey² emulator available, the excellent O2EM. Developed by Dan Boris, O2EM development was recently taken over by Andre de la Rocha, who has enhanced the emulator's capabilities and even added support for the European G7400 games!