The Sega Channel Adapter

Excerpt from Genesis Game Guide by The Scribe

NAME:             The Sega Channel
AUTHOR/VENDOR:    Sega
RELEASED:         1995-1998
TYPE:             Subscription TV service
LANGUAGE:         English

PREMISE:          This was a cable TV service offered to subscribers in
                  both North America and Europe from 1995-1998.  It
                  provide its users with special hardware that allowed them
                  to download and play Genesis games using a special non-
                  battery-backed RAM cartridge.  It offered a special
                  parental control feature that allowed parents to lock out
                  offensive titles.  You could even play against users in
                  other households.  This was billed as "the world's first
                  interactive TV service" in the Sega press releases.  The
                  service was officialy discontinued in North America near
                  the end of 1997, and in Europe in mid-1998 - a victim of
                  of the Internet and advances in gaming techology.

IMPRESSIONS:      "It works like that video-on-demand we're all waiting
                  for - subscribers get to SELECT IN REAL TIME from over
                  50 games....  You can't save the downloaded games, by the
                  way.  They come and go as you select and quit....  Toy
                  stores actually BENEFIT in areas where the Sega Channel
                  is offered...the sampling of 50 games each month each
                  month causes subscribers to buy more games at retail...."
                  (QLM Marketing web posting, 1996)

VARIATIONS:       The following games are either known or rumored to exist
                  as titles that were unique to the Sega Channel.

                       Breakthru
                       Bust-a-Move, aka Puzzle Bobble
                       College Games
                       Garfield - The Lost Levels
                       Klondike
                       Wild Snake

                  There are apparently a few more, but I am unable to link
                  titles with half-remembered descriptions as of this date.
                  There were also a few hundred three-level playable demos
                  apparently produced (or hacked) of the many titles in the
                  G/MD cart library.  I appeal to anybody who has copies of
                  those demos and other unique Sega Channel software to
                  contact me immediately.

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