The Untold Story of the Invention of the Game Cartridge

fastcompany.com

52 pointsprotomyth2 comments

"In tandem with taped-on-screen plastic overlays and physical board and card game paraphernalia, the Odyssey could provide new gameplay experiences."

I'm too young to have played these 70s systems, but the quote above reminded me of LCD games I played in the 90s, where the digital world was given depth by printed color backgrounds. Now that I think about it, the games on those little handhelds probably came quite close to what you used to get on the Odyssey and Atari 2600 15 years earlier.

Definitely worth reading through to the end for the analysis of why Fairchild, first to market, was ultimately beaten by Atari. Always an element of 20-20 Hindsight in such analyses, but I enjoyed the lessons about understanding what the customer wanted (action and price) being a key part of the difference.

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