Trying To Get Magnavox Into The Arcade Video Game Business – And Super Odyssey
At the same time (1974), Bob Fritsche at the Magnavox end and I from my Sanders base were in frequent contact. Now that I had the charter and the time to go wherever my licensing support activities led me, I kept using Bob as my point man. I needed him to exercise some influence over future Magnavox video game product programs, the only way I saw that would keep the license income stream flowing, short of developing a string of sublicenses.
Fritsche called me on October 1st to arrange for a visit at Sanders. Having failed to sell my own management on setting up a separate arcade game operation for Sanders, the new objective was to try and get Magnavox into the video arcade game manufacturing business. Everything was in place for that move: We had two completely engineered games, our Skate-N-Score and Pro-Soccer designs. And we had all the documentation needed to put them into production.
In addition to that subject, I also wanted to discuss a potential product which was something that Bob Fritsche had been noodling around in his head. He called it „Super Odyssey“ – a home game that would be able to play the S-N-S velocity controlled „de/dt“ sports games.
Early November of 1974, Fritsche and I went over details of what it would take to lower the cost of his „Super Odyssey“ game. Bob came to Nashua on the 12th of the month. With him were Bob Price and John Slusarsky, both from Magnavox‘ video game engineering group. We demonstrated our two arcade games to them. They worked so well and they were so completely production engineered that everybody got quite excited about moving forward with dispatch. Having Magnavox take over the production and distribution of our Skate-N-Score and Pro-Soccer arcade games seemed to make a lot of sense to both parties.
But it was a „Super Odyssey“ having some or all of the capabilities of our Skate-N-Score games that really had turned on Bob Fritsche. While he was still visiting with us, he spent some time doing an estimate what Magnavox‘ cost would likely be for such a home game product. He thought that a sales base of 3,500 to 4,000 units was a reasonable number. He figured that he might be able to work through Magnavox‘ exclusive distribution chain. Based on that quantity, he came up with a price of $424 for the product. The game would contain a built-in 17″ TV set and would be housed either in an armoire type cabinet or one of the low floor consoles of their deluxe TV set line. Our three visitors left for Fort Wayne the next day, apparently all fired up with that concept. Personally, I was not enthusiastic about the direction into which our discussion had moved.
I had my doubts about a consumer product with a PC board of the complexity and cost of our S-N-S games. Instead, I plugged for an updated Odyssey version instead. On the one hand, I was hopeful of salvaging our arcade game effort. On the other hand, I was just glad to see some momentum coming into in Magnavox‘ video game planning. Either way, things looked promising for us. Hope springs eternal but the feeling usually doesn’t last long … it didn’t.
Fritsche called and reported to me on the 21st that the decision on whether to go ahead with either scheme was mired in internal management politics. For starters, Bob arranged for a meeting in Fort Wayne after Thanksgiving – on the 26th and 27th of November – with Nat Adams, the General Manager, to sort things out. I began to get the feeling that I better not hold my breath in anticipation of great decisions from Magnavox.
On the same day, I wound up having a somewhat heated argument on the phone with Tom Briody, Magnavox‘ chief patent counsel in Fort Wayne. He called to question the legality and admissibility of the coin-op venture Fritsche and I were talking about, at least under the present Sanders-Magnavox license agreement. I told Tom to leave that to Bob Fritsche and me … and later that day attempted to reach Nat Adams to try to end run any obstructionism from their legal department. As it turned out, there was no need for a confrontation. Tom Briody and I eventually became good friends. He would become the sparkplug for Magnavox‘ successful licensing program.
In that same month, November of ’74, Philips and later Magnavox announced the arrival of their 12″ video disc players. I had been eyeing them for awhile because, in my mind, their random branching capabilities made them the natural successors to video tape players for interactive video training, education and game systems. Consequently, I started bugging Magnavox for a sample unit and began involving Bob Fritsche in related discussions.