K.C. Munchkin (Odyssey²)

K.C. MunchkinBeating Atari’s home adaptation of Pac-Man to the punch by nearly half a year, Magnavox introduces K.C. Munchkin for the Odyssey². Within three weeks, after widespread documented occurrences of dealers describing the game as “just like Pac-Man” (despite specific instructions from Magnavox not to do so), Atari sues Magnavox for violating copyright law. Read more

The Voice of Odyssey²

The Voice of Odyssey²The Odyssey² video game console gets its first major hardware upgrade in the form of the add-on voice synthesizer module, marketed as the Voice of Odyssey². With the Type & Tell cartridge packed in, the Voice promises to add speech to numerous specially marked Odyssey² games. The initial line of Voice games, also released on or around this date, includes K.C.’s Krazy Chase (a sequel to the sued-off-the-market K.C. Munchkin), and educational games Nimble Numbers NED and SID The Spellbinder.

Phillips halts Odyssey²/3 development

Odyssey3North American Phillips (formerly Magnavox) announces at the summer Consumer Electronics Show that it has put the Odyssey² video game console’s slightly more advanced successor, the Odyssey3 Command Center, on hold indefinitely – just six months after unveiling it – rather than meeting its July release date. What Phillips doesn’t announce is that active game development on the Odyssey² has also been halted; the company’s game designers are now focused on a new effort to publish games for non-Odyssey consoles under the Probe 2000 name.

Odyssey² production ends

Odyssey²Like many other companies tied into the video game business – whose profits seem to be in an endless downward spiral – North American Phillips (formerly Magnavox) closes down production of Odyssey² hardware and software, and reassigns staff programmers to other products, including Phillips’ stand-alone word processor, VideoWriter, though few of the company’s former game designers remain with that project for long.