Which is the most significant (important) console in history?

[Mnementh]

fatslob-:O said:

Mnementh said:

Because Magnavox Odyssey was the one that showed that potential. Atari was one of the companies that saw the success and jumped into that market, one of the many companies, and with their experience in arcade automats and game programming they could be most successful, but what the Odyssey did was incredible and it was the blueprint that Atari and the others used.

I don't remember the Magnavox Odyssey being a trendsetter like the Atari 2600 was ... (330000 units vs 30m units)

This is a lame argument, as you could say the Atari wasn't the trendsetter because NES had 80m vs. the 30m.

But well, let's take a look how Atari came into existence:

"On June 27, 1972, the two incorporated Atari, Inc. and soon hired Al Alcorn as their first design engineer. Bushnell asked Alcorn produce an arcade version of the Magnavox Odyssey's Tennis game,^[15] which would be named Pong."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari#Atari_Inc._.281972.E2.80.931984.29

They made another arcade based on the Magnavox already, and this game - Pong - became three years later their entry-ticket into the home console market. 1975 as they released Pong Magnavox discontinued the first Odyssey to start the Odyssey series, follow-up consoles. As far as I see it no home gaming system came to market before 1975, for three years the Magnavox Odyssey was alone on the market. 1975 and 76 multiple companies decided to release a home game system. Why do you think is that? Because they saw the potential of the Odyssey and wanted some part of it.

For bonus points: 1974 Magnavox started selling Odyssey in Japan - through a license deal. The partner was ... tada ... Nintendo.

Probably a home console market would've come into existance, but without Ralph Baer and the Odyssey it would've happened years later and already with a firm competition from PC-gaming. Without Atari on the other hand the market would've simply be dominated by Coleco, Epoch, Magnavox, Fairchild, Mattel, or any of the other companies that entered the newly created market alongside Atari.