Name: Videomaster Home TV Game (model VM577)
Type: Dedicated console
Manufacturer: The Sales Team Ltd – London
Country: United Kingdom
Year: 1974
Launch: October 1974 (UK)
Original price/found prices: £49.95 (October 1974)
Games: 3 games
Technology: No CPU, discrete circuit with 17 TTL chips.
Availability: 1974 – 1975
Units: ~8,000 units?
Videomaster Home TV Game is a dedicated console by the British company The Sales Team Ltd., launched in October 1974, being one of the first consoles released in Europe.
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History
The Sales Team was a company specializing in the production and distribution of food products, founded by Cameron Macsween and Richard Fairhurst in 1973. It was based on 119/120 Chancery Lane in London.
Although dedicated to the food business, they came from two very different branches. The Macsween family, of Scottish origin, had a meat product manufacturing company called MacSween Harris. Cameron opted for marketing, creating a food promotion company from scratch.
Fairhurst was a partner at A.C. Neilson, a large food market research firm, and joined The Sales Team after two years as marketing director for the Milk Marketing Board. The company started by producing products such as depilatory creams and curry powder.
Both men had experience in food marketing. While promoting Barclays’ traveler’s checks in America in 1973, the duo discovered a version of Pong in an arcade. They bought a machine and brought it back for analysis. The company already had an established network of contacts with brewers, and so they began ordering the machines and installing them in pubs. The Sales Team soon became the largest operator of Pong machines in the UK.
Later in 1973, a young engineer named Robin Palmer visited their office and demonstrated a home TV version he had built based on the games he had seen in a local pub. In 1974, Palmer joined The Sales Team as technical director. Based on Macsween and Fairhurst’s suggestions, Palmer adjusted the size of the bats and the ball speed. The final product included Tennis, Squash, and Football games. It featured large square paddles that could be moved horizontally and vertically using two potentiometers, a central court line, and gray outlines for the walls. There was no on-screen or manual scoring, and serving was done automatically. In Football, the goals were quite small, occupying approximately ⅕ of the screen and roughly three times the size of the paddles.
The product was introduced as the Videomaster Home TV Game in October 1974, and the company sold 4,000 units that year. The game was sold both as a kit and in assembled form, which was reflected in its boxy plastic casing sealed with screws. In total, over 8,000 units were produced.
Courtesy of British Newspapers Archive
Courtesy of British Newspaper Archive
Courtesy of World Radio History
The console, according to some sources, was marketed in UK, Germany, and France, although there is no solid evidence to suggest it was sold in the latter country beyond a mention in a 1983 French video game magazine as “the oldest console in Europe.”
The Videomaster VM577 was produced until 1975, when it was replaced by the Videomaster Home TV Game MK III and the Videomaster Olympic, with fairly minor changes regarding hardware.
Was it the first European console?
If by “first European console” we mean the first video game system sold in European territory, then no, it wasn’t.
The ITT Schaub-Lorenz began marketing the Magnavox Odyssey under the name “Odyssee” in October 1973. It was an imported Odyssey, adapted for the German market.
Additionally, the Odyssey was imported to the United Kingdom between 1973 and 1974 by the electronics company Wendaford, which essentially made amateur adaptations to the console so that it could be used with European receivers.
Courtesy of Pong-Story (David Winter)
Courtesy of the BBC
Was it the first console developed in Europe?
Inter Electrónica, a renowned Spanish consumer electronics company, developed the Overkal console, a modified clone of the Magnavox Odyssey dating back to 1973. In a my research article, I provide a series of official records and documentary evidence supporting the idea that the system was developed and conceived between 1972-1973.
However, the launch date is still disputed, with the console believed to have been released between February and June 1974, with February-March being the more likely period. Thus, the Overkal precedes the Videomaster’s release by nearly a full year.
On the other hand, if we understand it as a system with a genuine design that is neither copied nor based on another system, then we could say that it was the first developed console in Europe. Unlike the Odyssey and the Overkal, which used simple electronic components such as transistors, capacitors, resistors, and diodes, the Videomaster employed 17 TTL chips to generate screen elements and collisions, using a simpler and more compact circuit board design compared to an Odyssey based system.
Features
The system was really simple. It played three games:
- Tennis
- Football
- Squash
Courtesy of Pong-Story
The players could be differentiated: one was solid white, and the other had vertical stripes. The edges of the playing field were also graphically represented in a soft color, making it quite an advanced console for its time. The players could be moved both horizontally and vertically, and the ball had a rebound angle.
References and Sources
- Videomaster Home TV Game on Pong-Story
- Sunday Times (06/26/1977) “Big shots with a small screen” , courtesy of Gaming Alexandria
