Released in North America in February 1979, the Odyssey 2 had moderate success competing against the Atari 2600 however, it fell behind after the release of the Intellivision.

The Odyssey 2 was a followup to Magnavox's successful line of pong-like consoles in the early 70s. Compared to its competitors at the time, the Odyssey 2 had fairly limited graphics, but it had some unique features, including a full keyboard and a speech synthesis add-on.