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In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the video game market experienced an explosion of products hoping to capitalize on the success of the Odyssey and Atari. From the nigh-infinite Pong clones to the suspiciously similar consoles, consumers had far more options than they do today. This is a list of those first and second generation machines. Not all of them can be emulated or preserved, though some that can't be emulated have simulations instead. See also [[Strange and Forgotten Console emulators]], a similar page but for later generations. Amazingly, over 900 first-generation home video game consoles are known to exist. More than 200 different companies were involved in the first generation, and while more than half only released one console, it's still a large number of companies compared to the 20 that partook on the second generation.

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