Magnavox Odyssey 2: 1978-1984

The Magnavox Odyssey 2 is an overlooked second generation game console, at least in the United States. I was curious how this console sold 2 million units and yet I never saw one and rarely heard about it growing up. It was launched December 1, 1978 and discontinued March 20, 1984. That makes today as good of a time as any to give this console a second look.

Magnavox’s underdog console

When it comes to home game consoles, they typically are dominated by three players in each generation. If there are more than three players, there is usually a pretty big gap between number three and number four, both in terms of units sold and the size of the software library.

Pretty much from the time of its release on December 1, 1978 at a price of $179 until the summer of 1982, Magnavox held on to the number three spot in the second generation.

Magnavox competed by differentiating. In addition to a pair of joysticks like Atari had, they gave the Odyssey 2 a membrane keyboard. This made it the first home game console with a keyboard. It was also the first one to feature speech synthesis. They also differentiated by making different types of games, including hybrid video/board games, to appeal to teenagers. Magnavox’s strategy was similar to how Nintendo dealt with Sony from the Playstation 2 onward, leaving Sony to what they do well, and leaning into a different audience.

The strategy worked until Coleco entered the market with its arguably-next-generation Colecovision console. It was pretty clear then that Coleco would overtake Magnavox pretty much right away. At least in the United States.

The simple reason I rarely heard about the Odyssey 2 when I was a kid and none of my friends had one was because we weren’t the audience. We were too young. The Odyssey 2 may have been the first game console aimed at a teenage audience.

What’s in a name?

The Magnavox name helped and hurt the console. At the time, adults feared connecting a console to a TV might damage it. Buying a console from a TV maker might alleviate that concern. And Magnavox had plenty of name recognition, as a leading brand of TVs at the time. But it’s also easy to assume a Magnavox console only works with a Magnavox TV. That wasn’t the case at all, but perception can be hard to overcome.

The public learned that any brand of VHS VCR worked with any other brand of TV, but the Odyssey was on its way out when VCRs became the hottest selling thing in consumer electronics.

The Odyssey’s most notorious game: K.C. Munchkin

The Odyssey’s most notorious game was a Pac-Man clone called K.C. Munchkin. The sprites looked different and there were three munchers instead of four ghosts, and the dots you had to eat moved around rather than staying stationery. But it was clearly very Pac-Man inspired. You were still eating dots in a maze while opponents chased you. They tried to change enough to not get sued while staying enough like Pac Man to cash in on the Pac Man craze going on at the time. Pac-Man was the hottest arcade game going in 1981, and people wanted to play it at home, and didn’t care about waiting for a licensed version.

Atari sued in 1981 to have the game removed from the market. Its existence certainly suggests the Odyssey could have played a credible version of Pac Man. Better than the home version Atari ended up releasing for the 2600, arguably.

Third-party games

The Magnavox Odyssey 2 suffered from a lack of third party titles, at least at first. But that changed in 1983. That year, Imagic and Parker Brothers noticed there was a console with an installed base of almost 2 million owners that all of the other third-party publishers completely ignored. So they started creating arcade-style titles, or outright ports in the case of Parker Bros, for the Odyssey 2. Parker Brothers released Popeye, Frogger, Q*bert and Super Cobra. Imagic released Atlantis and Demon Attack.

The games had the same problem as Donkey Kong on the Atari 2600, but they at least let you play simplified versions of arcade games at home.

If they had started a year or two earlier, it might have been a difference maker. Especially for one additional reason.

The Odyssey 2 was most popular console in Europe and Brazil. Given there was no 1983 video game crash in the rest of the world, if those two US-based publishers had been a bit further along in converting their software libraries, the Odyssey 2 may have provided them with a much needed lifeline. But instead, the Odyssey was discontinued March 20, 1984, and a struggling Imagic went out of business soon after. Parker Brothers lasted a bit longer, but by the end of 1984, it also discontinued all of its video games.

Magnavox gave up on game consoles after this generation. Given Atari’s aggressive pricing in the third generation, it was probably a wise move.

Collecting the Odyssey 2

The Odyssey 2 can provide an interesting challenge for the hobbyist. While much less common than an Atari or even a Coleco or Mattel console, it’s easier to find than a Vectrex, APF, Fairchild, or Emerson console. Its cartridges are numerous enough at 81 to keep you looking for quite a while. Adding to the challenge, not all 81 titles were available in all regions.

In Europe, it’s probably interesting for another reason. It was more popular there than it was in North America, so there will be more people who remember either having one or knowing a friend who had one. So it will benefit from nostalgia-driven interest, in addition to being challenging to collect.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.