Listen now | Often in the shadows of more well-known consoles, like the Atari 2600. The Odyssey 2 was a successful console with lots of great games. It deserves more attention.
Certainly one of the most overlooked consoles of the era, especially given its relative popularity. As an Atari 2600 owner, I considered the Odyssey 2 inferior - until I saw KC Munchkin vs. Atari's Pacman and the Quest for the Rings game!
Your Odyssey 2 story closely matches mine. In the mid 90s at the tale end of the SNES and Genesis, I went over to my friends house and his dad had a box set aside with a Magnavox Odyssey 2 from the early 80s also with a bunch of games. I was familiar with most videogames of the era, but never tried the Odyssey 2 up to that point. It was a blast, even though we had just rented some games for our 16 bit consoles to play that night. I offered to buy the console, it was so interesting to me. That was the original reason it was set aside in a box, to get rid of it. He told me he'd think about it, I never ended up hearing a price as he ended up keeping the console :)
Finally the podcast I've been waiting for. Great job on this one. My favorite system that I still have and play to this day including a complete set of the American carts as well as the third party, homebrews and I have a multi cart which has the European games included on it for it.
I had a couple of friends with Odyssey 2. They were the "cool kids." We were in awe of KC Munchkin and there were some nifty space games as well. I desperately wanted one but my parents were firm that one video game system was enough. I eventually upgraded to Colecovision and Odyssey 2 faded into history.
Certainly one of the most overlooked consoles of the era, especially given its relative popularity. As an Atari 2600 owner, I considered the Odyssey 2 inferior - until I saw KC Munchkin vs. Atari's Pacman and the Quest for the Rings game!
Your Odyssey 2 story closely matches mine. In the mid 90s at the tale end of the SNES and Genesis, I went over to my friends house and his dad had a box set aside with a Magnavox Odyssey 2 from the early 80s also with a bunch of games. I was familiar with most videogames of the era, but never tried the Odyssey 2 up to that point. It was a blast, even though we had just rented some games for our 16 bit consoles to play that night. I offered to buy the console, it was so interesting to me. That was the original reason it was set aside in a box, to get rid of it. He told me he'd think about it, I never ended up hearing a price as he ended up keeping the console :)
Maybe it was one of those things where you made him realize the value of it and suddenly wasn’t ready to part with it.
Finally the podcast I've been waiting for. Great job on this one. My favorite system that I still have and play to this day including a complete set of the American carts as well as the third party, homebrews and I have a multi cart which has the European games included on it for it.
New subscriber here. Have you done a write-up on the Vectrex console?
Its a little older as my podcasts go, and is probably overdue to be redone, but I recorded an episode way back in 2010 about the Vectrex.
https://www.retroist.com/p/retroist-vectrex-podcast
I had a couple of friends with Odyssey 2. They were the "cool kids." We were in awe of KC Munchkin and there were some nifty space games as well. I desperately wanted one but my parents were firm that one video game system was enough. I eventually upgraded to Colecovision and Odyssey 2 faded into history.