Yesterday was still a pioneer sweetie, today it became the first litigation stick?
This is the story of a brave man turning into a dragon.
Mirovar Odyssey
What kind of product is the Milovar Odyssey? Here's what it looks like as a prototype.
As the world's first commercial version of the home console, the Milo wah Odyssey is qualified.
A total of 28 games were launched at the Milo wah Odyssey, 13 of which were released with the console (12 in the United States and 10 in other countries). Six were released independently, one was given away after players filled in an opinion card, four were released with the Light Gun, and the last four games were released in 1973.
The product form of the Milohua Odyssey is very complete, and the product concept in the future home game console is reflected in different degrees in the Milohua Odyssey. For example, the console, cassette, gamepad operation, game peripherals and so on.
The Milo wah Odyssey is played interchangeably via a card cartridge, which is placed in a randomly given box, each with an order number. These serial numbers do not have the game name on them, but are marked with a numeric serial number.
The Lohua Odyssey is equipped with 2 sheets of film that can be draped over the TV, so that players can play games with colors and enhance the visual effect.
The Milovar Odyssey has prepared different game items for different games, such as cards, dice, chips.
The game's peripherals are also perfect, and the following is what the Odyssey Light Gun looks like.
Tennis game footage for the Milo wah Odyssey: characters, rackets, balls, courts, everything.
In August 1972, the Milois Odyssey was officially released. The black technology of its leading era immediately caused a sensation and attention around the world, and electronic manufacturers with a keen sense of smell realized the huge business opportunities contained in the home game console market and invested heavily in this market.
The golden age of consoles is finally approaching.
Millois Odyssey's performance
Mirowa creates the first closed ecology in the history of video game art:
The Milois Odyssey can only be connected to the Milovar TELEVISION set via proprietary cable;
The Milohua Odyssey can only be sold through a sales network approved by Milohua;
Mirovar Odyssey a mind to sell televisions;
After the release of the Milovar Odyssey, the first batch of production was 50,000 units. When it was first released, the sales momentum was really good, and Mirohua quickly added production to 120,000-140,000 units. The actual sales volume is less than 100,000 units. Mirovar was not satisfied with this result, but it was observed that the market demand was still there, and they produced 27,000 Milovar Odyssey in 1973.
At the end of 1973, Milowa began to invest in huge amounts of advertising, while reducing prices and promoting, a two-pronged approach.
After a series of marketing methods, the total sales volume of the Milovar Odyssey in 1974 reached 129,000-150,000 units. This result is not ideal, compared to 1972 is even worse.
Mirovar decided to discontinue the original Miroval Odyssey and began to sell new Odyssey, such as the Odyssey 100, Odyssey 200, Odyssey 300 until the 1978 Odyssey 2100.
In a few years, Mirovar has released 11 models. However, these are shrimp soldiers and crabs, and the shells have been replaced, which has little effect on boosting sales.
Overall, the Mirova Odyssey did not achieve decent results. From the launch of the first model in 1972 to the development of new Odyssey models in 1975, the total sales of the Milohua Odyssey were about 300,000 units. Compared with the sales scale of tens of millions of television sets in the United States, it can be said that it is very dismal.
In hindsight, this performance is inseparable from Mirovar's speculative thinking. Mirowa was reluctant to develop new video games or share Odyssey with other TV manufacturers. Will the world's firsts surely sell well in the world? This logic does not hold.
As a pioneer and inspiration for video game consoles, Odyssey demonstrated the enormous entertainment power of video game consoles combined with televisions.
This is history's assessment of it.
The first legal stick in the history of video game art
The performance of the Milo wah Odyssey, while unsatisfactory, has not diminished the enthusiasm of other companies to enter the industry. In this regard, Mirohua did not reflect on his strategic mistakes, he was thinking: Is it possible that I got up early in the morning and rushed to a late set?
The humiliation of being defeated by AT&T has returned, hanging over the entire Mirovar management. We can't just leave it at that, the patent for the video game device is still in our hands.
Mirowa turned his angry eyes to the most popular console manufacturer at the time, and the culprit that led to the defection of his own players: a young company that was only 2 years old, Atari.
In 1974, Sanders Associates and Mirowa jointly sued Atari for infringement, tracing Atari's game ideas back to documentation from the beginning of Odyssey's development in 1966. The lawsuit ended with Atari losing the case and being sentenced to pay $700,000 in royalties.
Mirohua became famous in the first battle, and this lawsuit left him open. The Milowa company, which had tasted the sweetness, suddenly found that it seemed that the money from the patent lawsuit seemed to be much faster than the money from selling the TV set.
Why don't we fight a lawsuit full-time.
There's an organization in today's video game industry that can't be messed with, called the Nintendo Legal Department. It is said that the Nintendo legal department earns more damages than Nintendo sells games. But even such a fierce Nintendo was beaten by the Mirovar Company.
Starting with winning at Atari, Mirohua began a decade-long litigation journey in the video game industry. Everyone sues, one sues wins, commonly known as "California Pizza Hut".
The first legal stick in the history of video game art, turned out to be a world. It can be said that there are no ancients before, and there are comers after them.
Through his own game console patents, Mirohua took turns to fight lawsuits with game console manufacturers such as Atari, Nintendo, and Activision.
Take Nintendo, for example, which was the first company in Japan to receive sales agency rights in Milowa Odyssey. As the legendary helmsman of Nintendo, Yamauchi saw the great future of home games early on. Although he became the dealer of Milohua, the gods and men were the ones who had lived under the people for a long time. With the assistance of Mitsubishi Electric, Yamauchi released five Color TV-Game consoles between 1977 and 1980.
Milowa: What? Do you make game consoles?
The lawsuit was fought.
Yamauchi did not eat this set, and in 1985, the prepared Nintendo fought with Mirowa.
The picture shows the legendary god of Nintendo - Yamauchi Pu in his youth.
The battle began with Nintendo's counterclaim.
In 1985, Nintendo sued Mirowa, stating that the first video game should be William Higinbotham's Tennis for Two in 1958, asking the court to revoke the Odyssey patent.
The judge slapped back: "Double Tennis" did not use video signals, so it could not be regarded as a "video game", and Nintendo lost the case. Manufacturers of home consoles still had to pay a royalty to Milowa until the expiration of their patents in 1993.
In a 1989 interview, Nintendo vice president Howard Lincoln complained: "The business of The Mirovar Company is not to make games, but to prosecute those who make games." ”
After all, the pain of the body made Yamauchi learn the traditional art of the American "patent card neck". More than a decade later, Nintendo's legal department was transformed into Mirohua II, and the dragon became a dragon once again.
According to incomplete statistics, before the expiration of the game console patent "video game and training device" in 1993, Mirovar obtained about 100 million US dollars in licensing and compensation.
The epilogue of the Milo wah Odyssey
Mirowa is keen to fight lawsuits, and Bell, the inventor of the patent, often appears in court. Although they were all successful, Bell found that Mirowa's interest in fighting the lawsuit was far greater than that of a game console. After completing the development of the Milo wah Odyssey 2 in 1979, Bale withdrew from the subsequent development of the Odyssey and switched to electronic toys.
In 1978, Bell and Howard Morrison worked on an electronic toy called Simon.
The gameplay of this toy is simple, and the buttons will light up in a random order after the game starts, and emit a unique tone. The player needs to memorize the order in which the lights are lit, and then repeat this sequence exactly in the order of memory. The game was inspired by Atari's opportunistic game "Touch Me".
Simon sold well after its release, selling 10 million units by 1982.
It's a miracle in the U.S. toy market.
We should keep in mind the name of this Jew:
Ralph Henry Bell
Inventor of the world's first commercial home video game console.
This is the end of Mirovat's story.
The contestant who appears below is: Atari.