The Pong IC chip. (Photo courtesy of Pong-Story)

They soon found it was 1972 all over again, as the pong console was not met well by any of the chains they visited. It should be noted however, that many of them had a right to be cautious. By that point, sales of the first home gaming console the Magnavox Odyssey - were slowing down, and the industry was weary of another such product. Enter Sears and Roebuck.

One of the last stops at an attempt for distribution of the pong console was Sears Roebuck & Co., after one of Atari's board members came up with the idea of approaching them. The initial meeting with the Sears board did not go well however. On the way out, one of the Atari group had picked up a Sears catalog. While thumbing through it later on, they noticed that the sporting goods department of all places, had been selling the Magnavox Odyssey. They got the name of the buyer of that department, Tom Quinn, and proceeded to contact him - promoting their console as a "better Odyssey". This was true when in comparison to Odyssey's tennis game. While the Home Pong only played one game (just like the arcade version) unlike Odyssey's Magnavox, it included something Odyssey didn't have in it's tennis: digital onscreen scoring. Likewise, Alan had managed to transfer his skewing technique to the home version as well - continuing to use just one dial for control compared to the Odyssey's two.

Tom Quinn was interested and flew out several days later for an unannounced meeting and tour of Atari. He loved the demonstration of the Home Pong console several and was keen to get this product to sell through sporting goods during the winter months. There was one catch however - he wanted an exclusive agreement. They declined, not wanting to take a chance the product would not get to the right market (sports vs. toys) and loose the right to change markets themselves to boot!

After a failed attempt to hit the toy industry again at the Toy Fair in January of 1975, they were back talking to Tom again however. After several meetings with Nolan Bushnell, Gene Lipkin, Alan Alcorn and Sears executives to show off the prototype (including one almost disasterous demonstration that a quick thinking Alan Alcorn fixed), the deal finally went through.