The Odyssey — invented elsewhere, engineered here, built in Tennessee

1969 – 1972

The popular claim, tested: Fort Wayne is often said to have made the first home video-game console. The record splits the claim three ways, and this section prints the split rather than the slogan. The invention was not Fort Wayne's: Ralph Baer conceived television gaming in 1966 at Sanders Associates in New Hampshire, and his team's "Brown Box" prototype is the Odyssey's direct ancestor — Baer's own entry sits in the Inventors & Inventions section. The manufacture was not Fort Wayne's either: on Baer's own published account, compiled from Magnavox's documents, the Odyssey went into production in August 1972 at Magnavox's television plant in Morrison, Tennessee, and more than 130,000 units were manufactured by Christmas 1972.

What Fort Wayne actually did: The decision and the engineering. Baer demonstrated the Brown Box to Magnavox management in the company's Fort Wayne boardroom — Indianapolis Monthly dates the demonstration to 17 July 1969; the Odyssey FAQ compiled from Baer's book dates his demonstration to Fort Wayne's television-set engineering, production and marketing management to 17 July 1970. The two dates stand as their sources give them. Magnavox executive Gerry Martin championed the machine inside the company and urged the second look that saved it. After the licensing agreement with Sanders in March 1971, the Brown Box and its design data were turned over to Magnavox engineers in Fort Wayne; George Kent's group completed the production prototype in the summer of 1971, and Kent took the final design to the FCC's laboratories and passed its tests. The Indiana State Museum's formulation — that the first home video game was "developed at the company's Fort Wayne operation" — is accurate for the development, and only for the development. The Odyssey sold for $99.95 from September 1972 and reached some 340,000 units in all before it was discontinued in 1975: the founding product of a world industry, licensed on a Fort Wayne decision, engineered by a Fort Wayne group, and assembled in Tennessee.

Sources:

1. Ralph H. Baer, Videogames: In the Beginning, as compiled at Pong-Story and in David Winter's Magnavox Odyssey FAQ — the Sanders invention; the Fort Wayne demonstration; Gerry Martin's championship; George Kent's group and the summer 1971 prototype; production at the Morrison, Tennessee plant from August 1972; 130,000 units by Christmas 1972.
2. Indianapolis Monthly (2022) — the boardroom demonstration dated 17 July 1969, the putter and the rifle; Magnavox manufactured 100,000 units against 69,000 first-season sales in its account.
3. Indiana State Museum, as carried on the ACGSI Magnavox page — the Odyssey "developed at the company's Fort Wayne operation," introduced 1972 at $99.
4. Magnavox Odyssey FAQ (ConsoleDatabase) — 130,000 units sold in 1972; over 340,000 in all; discontinued late 1975.