Ralph Baer
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Ralph Baer, the father of video games, has died at 92

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 1 min

It’s a sad day for video games as Ralph Baer, the “father of video games,” has died at the age of 92.

He was a prolific inventor who earned more than 150 patents in his life, but his most famous work was creating a machine known as the Brown Box. It was later released in 1972 as the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console. Gamasutra confirmed Baer’s passing.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.