growing up, ours only worked for like one day out of the month. but it was badass while it lasted.

7/10/2012 9:28:26 PM

Wow, I've never even seen this before.

7/10/2012 9:52:08 PM

what does it do?

7/10/2012 9:53:36 PM

looks like some sort of ancient TWC/Comcast cable tv type setup through a Sega Genesis..??

7/10/2012 9:59:24 PM

subscription service for sega back in the 90's. like 50 games you could access through that cable, and they shuffled the games every month.

7/10/2012 10:00:11 PM

This was one of the coolest things ever.

I can't remember the cost, but i'm surprised it didn't catch on.

7/10/2012 10:03:47 PM

iirc it was like 15-20 bucks a month, which was a pretty good value, considering all you got. you could even save games.

but like i said, it did not work very well where i lived. for whatever reason, it only worked for a day or 2 after they reset the games. then, it would usually lock up or lag really hard the rest of the month.

7/10/2012 10:06:13 PM

clearly way ahead of its time

7/10/2012 10:08:48 PM

the original digital distribution - steam/onlive/netflix like 20 years ago

7/10/2012 10:46:17 PM

Heres something else that was similarly way before its time.

Quote :

"The CVC GameLine (Control Video Corporation) was a cartridge for the Atari 2600 which could download games using a telephone line. In the early 1980s a cable pioneer named William von Meister was looking for a way to use his innovative modem transmission technology, recently acquired in ill-fated attempts of sending music to cable companies. Legal issues caused cable providers to step away from the service, leaving Von Meister with a delivery tool and no content."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameLine

7/10/2012 10:54:34 PM

I loved Sega Channel. Dad bought it for me one summer when he was being deployed. It worked every day but only half of the games on any given day would work. It was still a blast

7/10/2012 11:03:42 PM

the bane of my existence as a nine-year-old.

[Edited on July 11, 2012 at 4:41 PM. Reason : .]

7/11/2012 4:41:04 PM

i remember this... i begged my parents for it, but never got it

never was even clear how it worked... i'm guessing it was dialup?

oh nm, looked it up... ran through cable. explains why i couldn't get it when i was a kid. parents house still doesn't have cable

[Edited on July 11, 2012 at 4:58 PM. Reason : .]

7/11/2012 4:56:52 PM

This and Dreamcast... way ahead of their time

7/11/2012 4:59:43 PM

Quote :

"clearly way ahead of its time"

7/11/2012 5:49:14 PM

This is how I discovered one of the greatest RPGs ever: Shining Force.

Then I was disappointed later on when I learned that most RPGs don't have that kind of battle system.

7/11/2012 9:13:04 PM

i have never seen this setup before either

they had a SEGA VCR!?!?!

7/11/2012 9:13:46 PM

my brother used to be all about some shining force 2...that game is long and epic yo

7/11/2012 9:21:20 PM

Shining force 2 is one if my favorite games of all time

7/12/2012 8:07:33 AM

I had this growing up.

It was awesome.

It was like renting 30 games for a month at a time.

Quote :

" This is how I discovered one of the greatest RPGs ever: Shining Force."

YES! Shining Force was awesome!

Also, Landstalker was on sega channel. This too consumed an entire summer of mine.




[Edited on July 12, 2012 at 8:20 AM. Reason : QQ]

7/12/2012 8:15:49 AM

I had this for a few years as well. Can't remember the cable company, I think it was the local one in Myrtle Beach (HTC). I remember playing Toe Jam & Earl, Earthworm Jim, Road Rash, Streets of Rage, and several others. Though i do remember several of the games provided were just demos

7/12/2012 8:25:03 AM

I played the SHIT out of some SHINING FORCE! LOL! Wow that brings back some memories! I downloaded the ROM for that last year!

7/12/2012 9:02:58 AM

It had its kinks that needed to be worked out. But looking back, I remember it as a very positive experience overall. Well worth the price.


This might be for another thread, but I'll say it here anyway since we are talking about 1990s TV... We also had a black box that never got zapped. The digital cable conversion is what ruined it. Spice Channel 61 4 lyfe.

7/12/2012 9:03:59 AM

i used to play this before walking across Western Blvd to go to Baxley's on Hillsborough.

7/12/2012 9:05:55 AM

what is a black box?

7/12/2012 3:57:25 PM

Quote :

"This and Dreamcast... way ahead of their time"

Amen. I am not ashamed to admit that I squealed like a little girl when I saw the other day that Phantasy Star Online 2 is coming to the USA. That's the first console game which I ever played online, and the first online game in which I learned how to dupe items. I had a godly trade empire.

7/12/2012 7:25:04 PM

^^^^^I also wished that Sega would release English translations of the Saturn game Shining Force III beyond the first "Chapter" and also of the more recent DS game Shining Force Feather, but I guess we'll have to hope for full fan translations (actually III is going along nicely).

7/12/2012 7:35:47 PM

http://youtu.be/ia14n1QR-NY

7/12/2012 7:39:26 PM