What was it like? I'm a euro so we didn't have Sega Channel here.
Sega being ahead of the curve on "You will own nothing and be happy".
>>12539723We did have it but I assume it was advertised like shit. Also I don't think my parents could've afforded it anyway.
>>12539723There was always something to play, and it was cheaper than renting games.
>>12539723as someone who had a genesis in the 90s i imagine it would have felt fucking baller at the time to use this, didnt even know about it at the time
>>12540172Imagine doing it on an Intellivision
>>12539723There were a bunch of categories that changed each month.Each category had 5-6 games.The categories weren't always genre-specific. Sometimes they just fit a theme.There was also a "Test Drive" section with demos of new games.There were 50 selectable games and the categories and games changed at exactly midnight at the end of each month. If you could stay up that late it was always an event to play the new games.As the games loaded, there was an info box on the screen that showed tips, cheats and other info.There was also a "Tips & Tricks" section from the main menu that loaded like a regular game but took you to an all text list of that month's games and had text-only manuals and lists of cheats, guides and other things. I don't think any of it was taken from the internet so it was probably from some internal Sega database they used for the hotline.You could only save one game at a time. So for example if you played an RPG for a few hours and then loaded a different game with saves, your save in the other game would be instantly gone. So you had to tell your siblings not to load certain games.There were exclusive games sometimes like Golden Axe 3.It was $15 a month for the duration I had it at a time when rentals were $5-6 for a single 3-day rental.Shit was kino af.
>>12540185I should add that most of the demos from the Test Drive section have never been dumped. I remember that the Super Street Fighter II demo had two different parts with different selectable characters in each since the ROM was 32 megabits and the Sega Channel could only load 24 megabit games. Some of them just had a timer slapped on (Earthworm Jim 2 comes to mind) that reset the game once the time ran out.
>>12540185Is it true that the initial adapter design featured a battery, so you could keep what you downloaded even after switching off the console, but it was omitted from the final product?
>>12540214That's not true. Mine had a working save battery that was compatible with most games. The only game I remember it not working with was Rings of Power, though they would still put that game on it sometimes.I'm just guessing anyone that had non-working saves either had an earlier revision of the Sega Channel cart or the battery was just dying/dead.
>>12540224Dead battery sounds like the most plausible cause.
>>12540227There were probably also a lot of retards who didn't understand that loading another game that used saves would overwrite whatever was already stored by the battery. I'm pretty sure there were some defective units out there though from what I've read before.
>>12539723The resemblance is uncanny
>>12540187>Some of them just had a timer slapped on (Earthworm Jim 2 comes to mind) that reset the game once the time ran out.Sounds like the kind of things you could prevent with a gameshark (?)
>>12540249I don't think that would have worked with Sega Channel. I do remember trying to use cheat codes on some of the demos but they didn't work, so they must have removed them just for the demos.
>>12539723Beats the hell out of me. But I remember reading about this in gaming magazine and wanting it so bad... but I was in Canada... so I couldn't get it. Doing this with the Genesis was an amzing idea, and the ROM's would take no time, even by 1995 broadband, as it was just MB's of data each. The service could hot have been done in the CD-era with the larger disc sizes without some massive increases in hard drives. They did work with gametap to try something like this for the PC. Would it be so hard to make a genesis model 3, and put in a storefront to buy additional game packs like the old steam version? Even Sega CD would be not a big deal with 250MB ISO's. Just basic service with new packs of Genesis/ MD, 32x, CD, SMS, GG ROM's obtained by Sega on a monthly basis, and a system with 30 games built in.
>>12540407>and the ROM's would take no time, even by 1995 broadband, as it was just MB's of data each.It actually took a minute or two to load each game. It was much faster than dial-up speeds but still way slower than typical broadband/DSL speeds of the early 2000s at least.
>>12540412>>and the ROM's would take no time, even by 1995 broadband, as it was just MB's of data each.>It actually took a minute or two to load each game. It was much faster than dial-up speeds but still way slower than typical broadband/DSL speeds of the early 2000s at least.A minute doesn't sound too bad for a real 16bit machine. The ROM cap limit was 24meg... which is not bad. there weren't that many 32meg ROM's on the Saturn... though Super Street Fighter 2 is a 40meg cart... which was the biggest Genesis cart made. 32Meg ROM's were split up.
There is a Sega channel revival project. Won't replicate the feeling of being there and using it in the 90s but it will at least let you replicate using the service and what it had on it every month.
>>12539723>what was it likeYou paid an expensive bill every month for the privilege of not owning your games. It's like modern gaming, but 30 years ago.
>>12539725>>12540563renting physical games :Orenting digital games >:(
>>12540242obsessed athecuck
>>12540583Yes. Problem?
>>12540583You can steal the physical games.
>>12540583It is a bit hypocritical. But to be fair you at least got to leave the house, be around other people for a bit, maybe meet some other kids in the game aisle and talk vidya, smell the popcorn and maybe buy some candy and a game magazine at rental places. You got a whole experience for your money.But when you "rent" online today it lies and says you "bought" the game. And when you pay for it you're just sitting alone in the same room, same chair, same clothes you've been sitting in for days/weeks in lonely isolation. It's not the same.
>>12539723It was insanely cool to have so many games at your fingertips but it was a very archaic software and had horrible load times. Still very cool, I only knew one rich kid who had it.
>>12540583At least with physical rentals they charged you an appropriate amount of money for it instead of charging you the same amount of money as a game you're supposed to keep forever.Also with physical rent there's the chance that the game still exists somewhere in the world in case the rental stores closes doors, with Blockbuster for instance they sold / liquidated their game copies away when they knew that they were closing.If by your message you instead mean modern services like Gamepass, that still comes with the caveat of all streamed games where you're having a poor experience from input delays and image quality that drastically changes depending on the internet connection.So overall, gonna unironically say physical > digital no matter how you spin it.
>>12542906You get the luxury of renting a bunch of games you might want to play but not own. You can invite friends to try out new games and see if it's good. It was about the availability of multiple games at once while everybody else had to go to the rental store and hunt for games they might not be in stock. It was about convenience and assortment. It wasn't about owning them in the first place
