I never had the Sega Channel, but my best friend did. He convinced his parents that it was cheaper than all the video game rentals they were doing for him. But shortly after he got the service his dad bought a PC and he discovered Doom and BBS services and that was the end of his Genesis days.
The SEGA channel to my 9 year old self was the absolute most exciting thing to ever happen in gaming. The second greatest thing was the first time I played Mario 64. I remember how my hands would feel on the controller, and the grip I had because of the excitement. The third most exciting moment was playing sonic adventure for the first time, because the graphics just felt so insane and I felt I was living in the future. Now, the most exciting part of my day is watching the homeless dude walk around the 7/11 dumpster to pee as I sit in my car in the parking lot feeling defeated and not knowing where to go or what to do. I like spaghetti
I played Garfield: The Lost Levels not only on Sega Channel, but during a 1996 vacation to Walt Disney World they had a kiosk with that version of Garfield in it at Epcot. Epcot had this giant Sega area in Innovations. I recall the levels often were rehashes of other levels. And, when you beat the few there were, you got a message from the developers saying they couldn't complete the game on time but wanted you to see these levels.
Wow, it’s almost like making games only available via live service (whether it’s subscription-based or satellite-based) is a terrible idea. Always preserve games, before they go away forever.
I actually had this service. It was essentially my birthday gift for that year. I still remember my mother handing me a note that was rolled up inside a replica of the ring from The Phantom movie (the one with Billy Zane). The note said to check my Genesis in the one cabinet of our living room's entertainment stand, and there it was. I can't remember whether we got rid of it because it was cancelled or because of the cost. Most likely the latter since I believe my mother returned the adapter, otherwise I probably would have kept it as a memento.
Stuff like this is why I think the Satellaview did so well, it's BS-X module cartridges allowed the downloaded games to be kept in memory, even after they were no longer bring broadcast, effectively the video game equivalent of a blank VHS Tape, recording the program so you could watch it later at your leisure.
The Gameline dial-up service (1984) for the Atari 2600 had a unique game called Save the Wales. It was long believed lost when the service went offline, but a copy surfaced a few years ago.
So even 30 years ago, the "netflix business model" was doing damage so media content. Just imagine how many games, movies and TV-shows will be lost in 30 years from now, due to streaming being the main way of consuming media content. Please folks, buy your multimedia on physical formats while you still have the chance.
exactly. and the only saving grace of Netflix shows not being lost is the act of world of torrenting and piracy. it's easy to make Netflix bootlegs it's damn near impossible to make Sega channel bootlegs if you don't have the originals. and bootlegging in the '90s was just not a thing; torrenting and limewire are 2000s tech
@@nxtvim2521 Just not a thing?? They copied the heck out of tapes before all this fancy crap. And before that people copied paintings and junk. And before that they copied religions. I'd say we could go all the way back to languages, but we were copying each other long before that too.
@@freshrot420 I can't tell if you're a smartass or a dumbass. I'm talking about video game piracy. of course people copied tapes. but unless you owned a 1980s microcomputer (NOT A PC) there was no way you were copying games on tape. I'm talking about ROM code. you have to know exactly what you're doing to extract a ROM. meanwhile you just hit record on a tape. different concept entirely smartass one is copying. one is piracy. I own the tape. I do not own the ROM code.
@@freshrot420 and yes I meant bootlegging video games from home. before Limewire and Torrenting; you relied on your friend or some cheap Chinese knockoff to get your kicks illegally. there was no industry behind bootlegging video games in the United States. Tengen is a different story entirely (unlicensed does not mean bootleg) your tapes are a copy. video gaming didn't get this ability to the public until the late 90s and early 2000s. and that wasn't capitalized until the 2000s.
The device only having RAM for storage was probably done both to save costs and also to prevent people from keeping the games if they stopped paying for the service, also it has the plus of making entrepreneurial pirates' life significantly harder, from a business perspective it makes perfect sense (nearly unbeatable DRM) but boy is it hostile towards preservation. They essentially achieved game streaming levels of control without having to actually do streaming, just taking advantage of the limitations of the tech, it's brilliantly devious. BTW given that a big box filled with Genesis/Megadrive game prototypes found its way into collectors hands some years ago I think it's safe to assume that there's a good chance that SEGA has lost a decent chunk of their archive at some point, I wouldn't be surprised if it was stolen during a move, there was this one time back in the 2000's when someone (can't remember if it was Izuka or Naka himself) from Sonic Team admitted that they were unable to find the 1990 alpha demo of Sonic 1 when they wanted to include it as a bonus in one of the collections. And many suspect than that famous Sonic 2 beta that has been floating online for years literally came from a cartridge stolen from an expo. So it might be the case that not even SEGA has those two SEGA Channel lost games anymore.
My cousin had the Flintstones movie game for SNES. The Genesis version here looks almost exactly the same with less colors. I never know a Genesis version existed.
You missed the big appeal of Wily Wars, there was an exclusive mode that unlocked when you beat the first 3 games, called wily tower, which let you pick weapons and items from the first 3 games to play through 3 new bosses followed by a wily tower
There's also a lost Earthworm Jim contest that was held on it called " the great Earthworm Jim race" it was a modified version of Earthworm Jim that was made and its lost with only a menu screenshot was found
I love Wily Wars. After you finish all 3 games you get to play a final wily castle and you can choose which powers you want to take with you from any of the games. I remember the advertising for the Sega Channel. Sadly our cable provider didn't offer it. I suspect availability was also a big issue with it. Also $15 a month was alot in 1994.
I remember Sega Channel well. It was the greatest service a game company ever released. I even had a sort of funeral for it. My mom got the notice of the day and time of the end of the service. The day came and we booted up the Sega Channel for one last time. Then the time came. So we reset the console and watched in silence. I witnessed the moment the Sega Channel left us forever.
My favorite Sega Channel memory was that there was seemed to be no authentication for the service. My mom subscribed to it for me on the cable provider at my house. On weekends I would take it to my dad’s house on a different cable provider and it just worked. My dad said that there was a cable guy that came by after a few weekends and had asked if we had a genesis with the Sega Channel and he said no and let the guy look around but it still kept working after that.
Sounds to me like the cable TV provider could detect when the receiver connected, despite there being no authentication, and they would've probably noticed connections to frequencies/channels without being blocked by Videocrypt or a similar analogue pay TV encryption system. Because they'd have lots of data from different subscribers they could look over, they likely only noticed when they noticed a pattern of connections from a specific address.
The Satellaview also has a large amount of media that got lost with the service's shutdown. Hopefully more work can be done to recover the missing broadcasts.
@@kabbusses actually I do because I’ve done the research and gathered the list of every known game that was on satellaview. I have all the roms. There’s only a handful missing that haven’t been dumped. I’ve been doing emulation for over 10 years so I kinda do have an idea, dude.
My neighbors shared the Sega Channel with me by sliding a coax cable under the doors between our apartments. So many fond memories of trying new games as they came out!
I was really fortunate enough to have the SEGA Channel as a kid! I remember playing The Wily Wars and some Barney game that had no way to lose at all. It made me realize that games needed stakes to be fun. I wish I knew about The Flintstones game. I am a big fan of the cartoon and movie and would've loved this! Despite having had the service, I never knew it was there. It's very, very nostalgic for me. I also remember Sonic 3D Blast was so big it was actually divided into two parts. When you finished the first part, you'd get a password to use for the second part.
I remember playing Garfield The Lost Levels on Sega Channel. I recall it had three levels, but as a kid I found the game pretty hard so I wasn't able to clear the first level, which was a snow/viking themed level where Garfield had a horned hat. I think the boss was a fat viking opera lady.
Another thorn in Sega Channel's side was the availability. While Sega did work out deals for multiple cable companies to carry it, those companies only operated in specific regions within the country. If they weren't in your area, you were out of luck.
I loved Sega Channel as a kid, and I do remember playing both Flintstones and Garfield. I seem to recall that Flintstones had a time limit that would stop your game after a certain amount of time had passed. One cut level from Garfield was an ice/snow stage, that featured a viking opera singer boss fight. I can also remember a bit of music from that stage, but not much more. Great vid!
For me as a kid, i absolutely loved Sega Channel. I didnt use it for very long but i remember many games played on it, and i only know one other person in real life who had it too.
I got the Sega Channel in 1995 when I was 12 years old. It was the most amazing thing I'd encountered in those 12 years. I used to stay up until midnight at the end of the month to see what new games were going to be on the list. They didn't always update it at midnight and boy would I be mad about that! Sega was always know for their innovation.
Same. The update could sometimes be right at 12:00, sometimes up to an hour later but when it hit, it was a rush. Thanks to the service, I ended up playing many games I would have never even thought to try. Even random kids games like Crystal's Pony Tale and Richard Scary's Busytown. I even played the Sesame Street game.
@@ilovellamafood Hah! I played the HECK out of Richard Scary's Busytown! There's still some space in my brain reserved for that pig going "MY HAT!" when you make the wind blow it off.
My sophomore, and junior years in high school..! that was the era of the “Sega channel” was active and it was a blast !! having access to all those games that would rotate on a regular basis when you were done with it you just hit the reset button on the actual device, or turn the console off and then pick another game Everyone at that time thought that it was magic. but we all kinda knew it wasn’t gonna last forever. 32 bit 3D consoles were right around the corner..
I used to have the Sega Channel. I played Garfield: the Lost Levels, and while I don't have any screen shots. I can tell you the extra level was a NOIR stage. I remember there was the trains that would go across the screen and you had hide in these holes that were under the tracks to avoid from getting hit. But there was this small little platform in front of the train that you could land on. and if you held the down crouch (the down button). You would be fine, but if you released it and stood up. You died. Which might explain some of the glitches you were talking about. You would get a new slew of games every month, but towards the end of its life. It would change every 2 weeks.
my friend Mike's dad work for the cable company so he was one of the first kids to ever to use the Sega Channel. I went over to his house in mid spring of 1994 to try it out, it was pretty cool. I forgot what games we played on it, but it was kind of neat we could play games we didn't have carts for back in those days. I'm sure if the service stuck around a little longer some company would have created a way to copy games to disk sort of like the Game Doctor but nothing ever came out that allowed for such game copying.
Wow. Nobody ever remembers this when I mention it. It was so regional, and so niche even within that. I've never met anyone in person who had it. It was awesome, and clearly way ahead of its time. There were demos, Japanese versions, and as this video mentions, exclusive titles. Although I played lots of Comix Zone and Skitchin'.
I didn't have the Sega channel, but my (then) girlfriends sister did, I remember hanging out over there and seeing the late 80s/very early 90s style menu, which was already dated looking when it released, because the "alt./grunge" aesthetic was really taking off by then. My only impression of it really was that the games took a while to download.
Hey Pojr, if you want another good topic try doing a video about the TurboGrafx 16's massively short-lived successor the SuperGrafx which only had six games
One thing I remember about Sega Channel is they changed the sauce on that 'Rings of Power' game from Naughty Dog Software so the easter egg eye candy on the title screen was removed. The code still 'works' but just leads to a hole in the data and the game crashes.
I want to find that one person who still kept there Genesis with Sega Channel still on, like that one guy from Japan who kept his Super Famicom on for 30+ years with Final Fantasy in it.
From my limited exposure to the Sega Channel at my cousin’s place, it was a bit disappointing in practice. I remember the titles would always rotate, so often a game you would want to play would be unavailable. Even worse, many games were only available in demo form. Even worse, games with battery save like RPGs would not save. I basically used the service to try out a few games and then bought used copies of them from my local game store since used Genesis games were dirt cheap back then. The service was not worth $15 a month. I would pay maybe $2 a month tops for what they offered.
Great video! Seeing these menu screens brings back so many memories. I was fortunate enough to have the SEGA Channel back in the day, so I got to experience these games on my Genesis in the mid-'90s. I loved playing stuff like Pulseman and Mega Man: The Wily Wars when I was a little kid, and it's a shame that those weren't more widely available, but at least that seems to have changed and those games are more easily accessible thanks to stuff like Nintendo Switch Online and the SEGA Genesis Mini. I had no idea that Garfield: Caught in the Act had stuff in the SEGA Channel version that never made it in the final release version. I remember playing it a bit on the SEGA Channel, so I very well may have played some lost media there. Wow.
I had a friend that said there was a Genesis version of Mega Man’s Soccer that was exclusive to the Sega Channel service. It seems dubious, but not unlikely.
To be fair, Sega Channel not having a save feature which saves the games you've downloaded is kinda stupid. If it were to have it then the lost games might see the light of day.
@@pojrexactly; the super famicom Sattelaview had the ability to archive and save games until it loaded a new one I may hate Nintendo but that's fucking smart. BS games aren't very lost and we're discovering new archives all the time because someone bought a secondhand in Korea or Japan during a vacation. with Sattelaview, it's luck. with Sega channel, it's pure chance Super Nintendo BS games leak a lot the only time Sega channel leaks is if an original developer releases his own code. (shoutout to GameHub)
My dad rented a SEGA Channel for a week from our local video store when I was 7, and I still vaguely remember it. It was a lot of fun, for sure, and blew my mind at the time.
The Sega Channel existed in, at least, two Canadian markets as well! In the mid-2000s, I found the cable adapter at a thrift shop. It had a property tag from a long-defunct cable company.
Now sounds like a good time for SEGA to release a game compilation for modern consoles. Something like: "SEGA Genesis Classics - The Lost Levels". That would totally sell. 😎 💰
I remember when there was a bad snowstorm and my school was closed for a couple of days so after my parents had gone to work id walk up to the time warner cable office and play the demo unit for the Sega channel. Was going great till i got caught by my uncle who was there to pay his cable bill. I got in a lot of trouble for that one.
The kicker is that Japan really didn't have as crappy internet vs. the US as you say because if you look at the online service for the DC which was 56K or less those Capcom games were pretty lag free. If anything Meganet likely had the problems you mention for lack of storage space on cart vs. the Sega Channel one.
In the initial run, the games were simple due to the baud rate. Downloading a 4MB file in the day (on a PC) would take about 6 hours on older hardware, maybe about an hour on faster modems. Been there, done that. Z-Modem protocol saved me multiple times when the phone had to be surrendered mid-download. (Z-Modem allowed for error-checking, and continuation if connections were lost.) At the end, I disagree this service would've done well if it came out in '92. Nobody will wait hours for a decent game, or 30 minutes for a simplistic one.
According to technical documents, the data transfer rate of the subscriber loop was 6Mbits/s or 750 kilobytes per second. Not accounting for error rates, ect., that would mean games could be downloaded in less than a minute. (Never experienced the service firsthand myself, but that doesn't sound bad at all for the time!)
I've heard that the tech behind MegaNet was the reason why its games tended to be as small-scale as they were. I don't remember if it was the slow modem or the limited memory on the cartridge, or perhaps both, that primarily drove that limitation.
I remember the day they disconnected it from service, my cable provider didnt tell anyone and just pulled the rug out from people. Didn't even bother to collect the hardware back. I honestly was a sega fan more so than nintendo because of this service. So when new game streaming services come up I'm all for it as I have been a consumer of them for decades at this point.
I was blessed to have the Sega Channel in my life back when it was out. Was really nice, too. Like bringing the Genesis shelves of Blockbuster into your own home with the game selection rotating each month.
Sega Channel and other early online services like this are fascinating. I had no idea there was lost media tied to Sega Channel though! Great video Pojr!
It's actually quite an interesting service. And, for the people that actually forked out for it, I imagine it was pretty cool and fun. I expect there's a lot of nostalgia for it from the people who used it back in the day.
loved the Sega Channel growing up, especially towards the tail end of its life span they started changing games every two weeks instead of monthly and the price dropped about half. So many amazing memories and games i would have never been able to play.
Sega Channel is how I played a lot of Genesis games for the first time and would later go on to buy them if I liked them enough. I still remember when Shining Force 2 was "new" on it and for some reason when you loaded it up, you'd be in the middle of a battle on what seemed like someone else's save file. What made it stood out though was that some of the characters were using their alternate promotions (like Sarah being a Master Monk instead of a Vicar), and it driving me and my brother nuts trying to figure out *how* you got those different promotions. It wouldn't be until years later, long after the service was gone and we had internet, that one of the *first* things I did once I had the world wide web at my fingertips was looking up everything I could about Shining Force 2 to find out a secret that alluded us both for years.
excellent video POJR! One can only hope the lost games will turn up someday. It's kind of like an early warning of digital-only storefronts in a way, you never truly own your games
I don't think Golden Axe III had an Australian release. Besides Japan it had an Asian Version which I think was a release for Singapore and some other countries.
another great game that only saw a release in the uk and in japan is alien soldier, by treasure (the same people who made gunstar heroes and dynamite headdy!!) this game sadly only saw a release in the us on the sega channel, so if you do follow-up to this video PLEASE consider covering this game, it’s amazing and one of the most impressive on the system imo
@@pojr just emulate it and save state spam lol speaking of which, I actually own a Japanese copy. The game is damn expensive. don't recommend buying it. Back when I got mine it was a little over 130 US. With how the retro game market is now, it's scary to think how much it is now.
As a kid knowing about the Sega Channel, I imagined the future gaming channels would've been crazy. lol It's insane how nobody else jumped on this idea.
Golden Axe 3 is the most painful one by far. I have a custom cartridge that has the Sega Channel version on it though. It's one of my favorite items in my collection.
Bought Genesis upon release and absolutely loved it but wow I never felt the need for the Sega Channel. I’m guessing it wasn’t advertised properly to entice me or that I’ve always preferred “owning” what I paid for. Imagine if Sega’s Genesis mini had the ability to do this, I’d definitely be onboard as I’ve become accustomed to digital now more than ever. Very interesting subject
I haven't heard of this until today. I was playing SNES in 1994 and I don't recall seeing any advertisements for this. None of my gamer friends or family had this either. Maybe the cable services in SE MI didn't offer this service.
While it's true that it wasn't around for long, 3 ½ years seems like a very long time when you're a kid. My best friend (at the time) and I both had SNES, so I never had the chance to experience it. But I remember it was always my friends' big dream back then to get a Genesis, and also Saturn and PS1, lol. He talked about those consoles quite a lot. No idea if he ever got any of them. I know he eventually got an N64, but then he moved away.
I remember wanting to plug in the SEGA Channel on NYE just before midnight to see if it switched AT midnight, but my parents wanted to watch the Ball Drop.
I still think this is the most aesthetically pleasing BB out of the whole series, i still instinctively flick the right stick from time to time in newer bbs. shame its most available port is in such a state. You'd think a game that prioritizes its lore so much would make its first chapter somewhat convenient to get through btw that collectors edition bb was more common than the standard ones for a long time i still have the goofy mana drink and dvds it came with
This is the very reason online games are so troubling for fans who like to alternate games between plays. So many games could become lost forever if the company disappeared.😊
Just so you know the genesis was only waning in 94 like Nintendo before it sega had to stave of disinterest in the Saturn so they kept releasing genesis stuff into 1998. The best of these was the swag nomad. I was lucky enough to buy one of these brand new on clearance for 100 from a flea market in 1998. It was what the game boy advance wishes it was… Like the game gear before it it was too far ahead of its time and it failed. But it was only meant to continue to keep customers until the Dreamcast so in that sense it succeeded.
I guarantee that none of these games are lost forever, as I'm willing to bet that somebody dumped a copy of each game so they wouldn't have to pay $15 a month.
Crazy how I convinced my mom to subscribed this for me back in the 90s. Without it, I would have never learned about Rocket Knight Adventures or Pulseman.
This is an example of just being ahead of its time in terms of technology. Sega was too early with this as far as the internet speeds. Now you can even stream games on Netflix. Too bad they couldn’t refine it at the time.
interesting because golden axe 3 was on the sega collection 1 for the psp. Didn't know it wasn't rereleased that often. Tbh I enjoyed it more than golden axe 1 and 2 which was also on it.
While I'm not saying it's the best idea, but instead putting it on the Genesis, they should have put it on the saturn instead, as that was the new sega console, and it would have boosted sales for it.
This Sega Channel service would had fare better had Sega also support it with the Sega Master System, Sega CD, Sega 32X, Sega Saturn, Sega Game Gear, and Sega Dreamcast as well. Only support Sega Genesis kind of limits the consumers a bit. Imagine renting and playing some games early like Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter 2, Tempo Jr., Virtua Racing Deluxe, NiGHTS Into Dreams, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Shenmue, and Soul Calibur weeks before they were released. Sega could had an advantage here over the PlayStation and N64 had they continue going this route. With this service Sega won't even need to offer demo disc or kiosk cause the service would had already got those online unlike Nintendo and Sony which only offered demo disc through a subscription magazine service or at kiosk booth via convention or retail stores.
