Magnavox Odyssey^2 The Magnavox Odyssey^2 came out in 1978 and was the follow-on machine to the original Odessey game console, which itself was Magnavox's entry into the home video game market. The Odyssey^2 is different than other video game consoles in that the front portion of the cabinet is taken up by a membrane covered keyboard, though few things took advantage of it. The Odyssey^2 was eventually made in two variants, the main, and possibly only, difference between them being that one had the two joysticks permenantly attached, while the other had joysticks that could be disconnected. The one in my collection is the earlier variant with the permenant joysticks. Few third party developers created cartridges for the Odyssey^2. There was even an add-on voice synthesizer module created for the machine.

The Odyssey^2 was released by Philips, the parent company of Magnavox, in Europe and other parts of the world as the Philips G7000 Videopac, and in France as the Philips C52. It was also sold in Brazil as the Odyssey, since the original Odyssey was never released there. The Odyssey^2 proved to be more popular in Europe than in the U.S. At the time of the great video game crash of 1984 there were plans for a new console, the Odyssey^3, which was previewed at CES in 1983. The Odyssey^3 was never released.

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