The idea for a video game console first came to Baer in 1951 when he was designing a TV and proposed adding hardware to it to play a game. That original idea was shot down, but it germinated in his head for the next 15 years (via Ralph Baer).
In 1966 he was in charge of equipment design for a defense contractor and the idea came back to him. Within 24 hours he had written a four-page paper outlining his idea. Just to be clear, he was outlining the very idea of what a video game is. Every lap in Forza, every bounty in Red Dead Redemption, every chocobo in Final Fantasy stems back to this paper.
Baer’s defense contractor overlords weren’t exactly enthusiastic about his idea, but they gave him time and money just to see where it would go. Over the next few years, Baer and a small team of engineers fleshed out their prototype and in 1971 they managed to convince a skeptical team of Magnavox executives to mass-produce and market the nascent console.
The 1972 launch of the Magnavox Odyssey didn’t shake the foundations of the world. It wasn’t a flop, but it didn’t change the nature of the entertainment industry like Atari and Nintendo. But it did shine a light that others could follow.
