"What If..."

[SSG]

What if there was an Odyssey 2 "flashback" console? Any idea what games would be on something like this?

[metarog]

Hopefully all of them as there are only 49 original games.

[krslam]

I'd prefer it emulated the G7400 so we'd then get the extended graphics. Should be plenty of room for the entire original library and a fair number of homebrews. Would be nice if it included emulation of The Voice, too, since we're just dreaming.

[SSG]

I'd prefer it emulated the G7400 so we'd then get the extended graphics. Should be plenty of room for the entire original library and a fair number of homebrews. Would be nice if it included emulation of The Voice, too, since we're just dreaming.

There is a 99.999999% chance this is never gonna happen anyway so why not!

[Flojomojo]

Such a thing would definitely include the Philips/Magnavox games.

 

Unfortunately, it would also need to be commercially viable to be a mainstream product. Since we saw the 2014 ColecoVision and Intellivision Flashback consoles not sell enough for AtGames to do a followup, something as obscure as Odyssey 2 is super unlikely to happen, especially as those of us who liked it are getting older and fewer in number.

 

Fortunately, O2EM is pretty much perfect, and includes The Voice. I like O2 games on my cheap retro game laptop. They also run very well on RetroPie in a Raspberry Pi. Apart from not having old-style O2 controllers, this is better than a Flashback would have been, anyway. The do-it-yourself version can have my favorite game, K. C. Munchkin without any legal troubles from dumb old Atari.

 

You can also play most of the games in a browser. In my opinion, this is the best use for Chromebook hardware, but I'm a little more biased towards the Odyssey 2 than most people.

[+pboland]

Unfortunately, it would also need to be commercially viable to be a mainstream product. Since we saw the 2014 ColecoVision and Intellivision Flashback consoles not sell enough for AtGames to do a followup, something as obscure as Odyssey 2 is super unlikely to happen, especially as those of us who liked it are getting older and fewer in number.

 

Even if it was mainstream enough, I still don't think it would happen just because of the keyboard aspect. You can only shrink a keyboard so much before it becomes a key pad.

[Flojomojo]

Yeah, I guess ... though despite the advertising focus on it, the keyboard isn't totally needed in the majority of the games. Perhaps someone could work out the proportions, but I feel it's about as "necessary" as Atari paddles or Nintendo light guns. Nice to have, sure!