Editing History of video games (section)

===The dedicated console market===
{{Main|First generation of video game consoles}}
[[File:APF TV Fun (with paddle model).jpg|thumb|right|''Pong'' clones like the [[APF TV Fun]] ''(pictured)'' over-saturated the market in the late 1970s.]]
The Magnavox Odyssey never caught on with the public, due largely to the limited functionality of its primitive discrete electronic component technology.<ref name="down many times"/> By mid-1975, [[large-scale integration]] (LSI) microchips had become inexpensive enough to be incorporated into a consumer product.<ref name="down many times"/> In 1975, Magnavox reduced the part count of the Odyssey using a three-chip set created by Texas Instruments and released two new systems that only played ball-and-paddle games, the [[Magnavox Odyssey 100]] and [[Magnavox Odyssey 200]]. Atari, meanwhile, entered the consumer market that same year with the single-chip Home ''Pong'' system. The next year, [[General Instrument]] released a "Pong-on-a-chip" LSI and made it available at a low price to any interested company. Toy company [[Coleco]] Industries used this chip to create the million-selling [[Telstar (game console)|Telstar]] console model series (1976–77).

These initial home video game consoles were popular, leading to a large influx of companies releasing ''Pong'' and other [[video game clone]]s to satisfy consumer demand. While there were only seven companies that were releasing home consoles in 1975, there were at least 82 by 1977, with more than 160 different models that year alone that were easily documented. A large number of these consoles were created in East Asia, and it is estimated that over 500 ''Pong''-type home console models were made during this period.<ref name="down many times"/> As with the prior paddle-and-ball saturation in the arcade game field by 1975 due to consumer weariness, dedicated console sales dropped sharply in 1978, disrupted by the introduction of programmable systems and [[Handheld electronic game]]s.<ref name="down many times"/>

Just as dedicated consoles were waning in popularity in the West, they briefly surged in popularity in Japan. These ''TV geemu'' were often based on licensed designs from the American companies, manufactured by television manufacturers such as [[Toshiba]] and [[Sharp Corporation|Sharp]]. Notably, [[Nintendo]] entered the video game market during this period alongside its current traditional and electronic toy product lines, producing the series of [[Color TV-Game]] consoles in partnership with [[Mitsubishi]].<ref name="gamestudies geemu"/>