The TV Tennis Electrotennis (Japanese: ''テレビテニス'', Hepburn romanzination: ''Terebitenisu'', meaning ''Television Tennis'', commonly abbreviated as TV Tennis or Electrotennis) is a dedicated first-generation

home video game console A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. Home consoles are generally less powerful and customizable than ...

that was released by

Epoch Co. is a Japanese toy and computer games company founded in 1958 which is best known for manufacturing Barcode Battler and ''Doraemon'' video games, and the Sylvanian Families series of toys. Its current Representative President is Michihiro Maeda. ...

(developed in cooperation with

Magnavox Magnavox (Latin for "great voice", stylized as MAGNAVOX) is an American electronics company that since 1974 has been a subsidiary of the Dutch electronics corporation Philips. The predecessor to Magnavox was founded in 1911 by Edwin Pridham and ...

) on September 12, 1975 for 19,000 Japanese yen only in Japan. It was the first video game console ever released in Japan. It released several months before the release of

Home Pong ''Pong'' is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released in 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alco ...

in North America. One unique feature of the TV Tennis Electrotennis is that the console is connected

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...

ly to a TV, functioning through an UHF antenna.Martin Picard
The Foundation of Geemu: A Brief History of Early Japanese video games
''International Journal of Computer Game Research'', 2013 Depending on the source, it sold about 10,000, 20,000 or 3 million units in its lifetime, including about 5,000 units in the first year.

Legacy

The successor of the TV Tennis Electrotennis is the TV Game System 10 from 1977. It includes as a

light gun A light gun is a pointing device for computers and a control device for arcade and video games, typically shaped to resemble a pistol. Early history The first light guns were produced in the 1930s, following the development of light-sensing ...

a plastic replica of a Mauser C96; the C96 replica was also usable with its next console, the

Epoch Cassette Vision The is a home video game console made by Epoch Co. and released in Japan on July 30, 1981. A redesigned model called the Cassette Vision Jr. was released afterwards. The term ''cassette'' is a contemporary Japanese synonym for ROM cartridge, no ...

, created in 1981. The wireless broadcast functionality of the TV Tennis Electrotennis got Nintendo designer Masayuki Uemura to consider adding that capability to the

Famicom The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...

(Nintendo Entertainment System), though he ultimately did not pursue it to keep system costs low.

References

External links

Japan's 1st Video Game Console was released 40 Years ago
{{first generation game consoles 1975 video games Dedicated consoles First-generation video game consoles Japan-exclusive video games Tennis video games Video games developed in Japan Wireless