The First Video Game Console Was Invented by a Man Escaping Nazi Germany. Most People Think Atari Did It.

Key Takeaways

• •Ralph Baer wrote the original concept at Sanders Associates in 1966 — 'play games on the TV'
• •Magnavox Odyssey launched September 1972 — $100, no sound, plastic TV overlays, 350K units sold
• •Nolan Bushnell played Odyssey's tennis game in May 1972, then created Pong at Atari months later
• •Magnavox sued Atari (and won) — Baer received the National Medal of Technology in 2006

Source: Manufacturer reports / industry estimates

Timeline

Ralph Baer was born in Germany in 1922 to a Jewish family. In 1938, at 16, he fled Nazi Germany with his parents, arriving in New York with almost nothing. He worked in a factory, served in U.S. military intelligence during World War II, and earned an engineering degree on the GI Bill. By the 1960s, he was a division manager at Sanders Associates, a defense contractor in New Hampshire.

In 1966, while waiting at a bus station, Baer started thinking about television. Nearly every American home had one. But a TV was passive — you watched whatever the networks broadcast. Baer asked a simple question: what if you could interact with the TV? What if you could play games on it?

He wrote a four-page proposal and began building prototypes in secret with technician Bill Harrison. Sanders Associates was a defense company — video games weren't exactly on the agenda. Baer and Harrison worked on the project quietly, building what they called the 'Brown Box' — a device that connected to a standard television and displayed simple interactive games.

Ralph Baer escaped Nazi Germany at 16. Thirty years later, he invented the video game. The $200 billion gaming industry traces to a refugee's imagination.

The Brown Box could play chase games, a tennis game, a shooting game using a light gun, and a quiz game. It used analog circuits — no microprocessor. Graphics were white dots and lines on the screen. There was no sound. To add visual context, Baer created plastic overlays that you taped to the TV screen — colored backgrounds for different games.

Baer licensed the technology to Magnavox, which released it as the Odyssey in September 1972. It cost $100 ($700 in today's dollars). It came with 12 game cards (circuit board jumpers that switched between built-in games), dice, poker chips, play money, and the plastic overlays.

Magnavox made a critical marketing error: their advertising implied the Odyssey only worked with Magnavox televisions. It worked with any TV. The confusion limited sales. The Odyssey sold about 350,000 units — modest, but enough to prove the concept.

Nolan Bushnell played the Odyssey's tennis game at a Magnavox demo in May 1972. Five months later, Atari released Pong. Magnavox sued. Magnavox won.

Then came Pong. In May 1972, Nolan Bushnell attended a Magnavox product demonstration in Burlingame, California, where he played the Odyssey's tennis game. Five months later, Bushnell's company Atari released Pong — an arcade tennis game with strikingly similar gameplay. Pong became a sensation. Atari became synonymous with video games.

Magnavox sued Atari for patent infringement. The case was settled in Magnavox's favor — the sign-in sheet from the Burlingame demo showed Bushnell's signature. He had played the Odyssey tennis game months before creating Pong. Atari paid royalties. But Atari got the fame.

Barely anyone remembers the Magnavox Odyssey. Ask people who invented video games and they'll say Atari, or maybe Nintendo. Ralph Baer spent decades correcting the record. In 2006, President Bush awarded him the National Medal of Technology. In 2010, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He died in 2014, at 92.

The $200 billion video game industry — PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, Steam, mobile gaming — traces directly to a German Jewish refugee sitting in a New Hampshire bus station, wondering what else a television could do.

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