Bad business practices of days gone by
Anyone remember Magnavox? That word you still see written on philips products sometimes? Well they actually used to be their own company, and they made things like TVs and video game consoles, in fact they made the odyssey, the first video game console to be sold on store shelves.
After the original odyssey, they released more consoles in the odyssey series, each one given a number. Unlike the original, these numbered consoles did not use interchangeable cartridges, they instead came with preprogrammed variations of the game pong hence the term âpong consoleâ.
One thing about pong consoles, is that many, including all but two of the odyssey series, had the option to be powered by batteries. And Iâm not talking about the double As in your modern controller, Iâm talking about C batteries, which I didnât even know about until I heard about them in an episode of angry video game nerd.
âBut tronâ you might be asking âWhy would they give you the option to use batteries?â Because they didnât sell the console with an ac adapter. Thatâs right, no ac adapter. You had to buy it separately at a Magnavox dealer (yeah, dealer, like a car dealer but with TVs and music players and shit like that) and whatâs more; there was still space in the styrofoam in the box specifically for the adapter, implying that they were originally going to include the adapter but instead thought; âthese assholes had the audacity to buy our products, and they will suffer the consequencesâ and decided to squeeze every cent they could out of their costumers while also wasting their time by making them take multiple trips to the dealer.
And this is why almost no one knows Magnavox is still a thing.