RCA Studio II
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The RCA Studio II was released by RCA in 1977 to compete against the Magnavox Odyssey (The first home video game console) and was released with five built-in games. It was one of the first video games to use programmable cartridges whereas the Odyssey's cartridges only activated what was already programmed into the Odyssey itself (the first console to use programmable cartridges was the Fairchild Channel F).
Origin
When Ralph H. Baer was looking for a company to market his Odyssey, RCA turned him down, so he went to RCA's rival, Magnavox, to market it. The Magnavox Odyssey became a huge hit and slowly started the video game craze. Realizing their mistake, RCA tried to create a game system to market on the now booming video game craze.
Why It Flopped
- It was obsolete the minute it was released. The Fairchild Channel F, which was released a few months before the RCA Studio II, was technologically superior to the RCA Studio II. Once the Atari 2600 was released 10 months later, the RCA Studio II was finished.
- Poor graphics and the games were in black and white.
- The controllers were built on the system as numeric pads and could not be removed. This made playing the games very uncomfortable.
- A single channel buzzer built in to the system was the only source of in-game audio.
- In addition to its five built-in games, only eleven more games were made for the system, totaling 16 games.
Trivia
Some games were actually programed in color. European clones of the system can play the games in color.
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