Sega Channel
Encyclopedia
Sega Channel was a project developed by Sega
for the 16-bit Sega Mega Drive/Genesis console. Starting in December 1994, Sega Channel service was provided to the public by Time Warner Cable
and TCI
, which later was acquired by AT&T during its cable acquisition spree that formed AT&T Broadband
.
For a monthly subscription fee (usually $14.95 depending on location), along with a $25 activation fee, the subscriber would get an adapter, which plugged into the Genesis cartridge slot, and was connected to their cable television
connection. The service would provide them with unlimited access to 50 games, selectable through an on-screen menu, with new games appearing every month. In its later years, this was changed to a selection of 35 games which rotated every two weeks. The games would be downloaded in about one minute and play just like the retail versions. These games were organized by genre, such as Action, Fighting, Adventure, and Family. Text-based instruction manuals for each game could also be accessed through a separate help menu download. Each month, there was a special theme with originally composed music, artwork and game categories.
Some unique content was released through the service:
The service was also available in Canada
through Shaw Cable
, in some parts of the United Kingdom
on certain cable services, in Chile
on the defunct Metropolis Intercom cable company, in Argentina
on a national TCI branch, Cablevisión TCI. and in Australia
on Austar
and the now defunct Galaxy.
To provide Sega Channel, a cable company would need to install new equipment into their headend, integrate service authorization into their sales center, and purchase the game adapters. Game adapters were manufactured by Scientific-Atlanta
and General Instrument
, with a cost to the cable operators of approximately $100 per unit. Additionally, many cable operators had to clean their broadcast signal in the head-end and all the way to "the pole" to ensure that the signal could be received. Sega, a gaming company, thus played a major role in improving infrastructure for future digital cable
services, as well as broadband Internet access and digital telephone services. At its peak, Sega Channel was available to one-third of the United States
and had 250,000 subscribers.
Sega Channel was not a video-on-demand service per se; rather, as the service's name would suggest, it actually was a broadcast channel, similar to premium broadcast channels which (at the time) required a separate piece of addressable cable converter equipment to access. The program code for the on-screen menus and the 50 available monthly games was continuously broadcast as a sort-of "sequential access" RF signal. The menu system would be loaded into memory on power-up (which took about 30 seconds), and when a game was selected, the machine would "wait" for the requisite program code to be broadcast, then download it into volatile RAM. A downloaded game could not be garnered—upon hitting the adapter's reset button or powering off the console, it was erased from memory, and the user was required to download it again, if desired (The menu system would have to be re-loaded into memory also). Hitting the console's reset button while a game was loaded would perform normally.
This method of accessing program content was very ahead of its time, and had only been tried once before, with Mattel's Intellivision
platform. With all the electromagnetic "noise" inherent in older RG-59 coaxial cabling, downloading games could be problematic at times—such noise could and did disrupt transmission of binary images 4–32 megabits in size (as well as the menu system). If this were to happen, the download would fail, in which case the user would be required to reset the console and try again.
Special accessories for certain games, such as the Lethal Enforcers
Justifier
, posed a problem: users were warned not to leave them plugged in when they reset the console—otherwise, the Sega Channel adapter could be permanently damaged.
Sega Channel ultimately ended due to the retirement of the Sega Genesis game platform and the difficult economics for the cable operators. The service ended on July 31, 1998, as the developers determined that the limited lifespan of the 16-bit technology was at risk due to the emergence of next-generation 32- and 64-bit technologies used by console developers Sega, Sony and Nintendo, coupled with the explosive growth of the Internet.
There were two different versions of the Sega Channel adapter, which were completely different in appearance—the first was manufactured by Scientific-Atlanta
, and the second by General Instrument
. Each adapter required a separate (included) 15-volt AC adapter to operate. Adapters were supposed to be returned to cable operators upon cancellation of the service; nevertheless, some of them still exist in the hands of collectors.
The uplink signal was at a carrier frequency of 1.435 GHz and occupied 8 MHz bandwidth using QPSK modulation.
The downlink signal was at a frequency of 1.1 GHz and occupied 6 MHz bandwidth using QPSK.
Subscriber Loop
QPR is a modulation scheme that uses a controlled inter-symbol interference. The receiver is capable of logically decoding the signal. QPR provides 20% better bandwidth performance than QPSK with only a minor increase in signal power.
This Sega Channel adapter allowed the customer to download the game selected in less than 1 minute. The adapter contained 4 MB DRAM, which held a game of up to 32 megabits in size. Once the game was downloaded, it worked exactly as if it were a cartridge. Sega also had ratings for each game and supplied the parents with a password (4 digit pin#) if so desired.
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
for the 16-bit Sega Mega Drive/Genesis console. Starting in December 1994, Sega Channel service was provided to the public by Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable is an American cable television company that operates in 28 states and has 31 operating divisions...
and TCI
Tele-Communications Inc.
Tele-Communications, Inc. or TCI was a cable television provider in the United States, for much of its history controlled by Bob Magness and John Malone....
, which later was acquired by AT&T during its cable acquisition spree that formed AT&T Broadband
AT&T Broadband
AT&T Broadband was the name of AT&T's cable operations, which were composed of the assets of TCI and MediaOne, Prime Cable, as well as two Comcast cable systems AT&T acquired later in a system swap. Formed in 1999, AT&T Broadband was the largest provider of cable television services...
.
History
According to an informational piece broadcast over the channel, Stanley B. Thomas, Jr., former senior vice president of Time Warner, headed the service.For a monthly subscription fee (usually $14.95 depending on location), along with a $25 activation fee, the subscriber would get an adapter, which plugged into the Genesis cartridge slot, and was connected to their cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
connection. The service would provide them with unlimited access to 50 games, selectable through an on-screen menu, with new games appearing every month. In its later years, this was changed to a selection of 35 games which rotated every two weeks. The games would be downloaded in about one minute and play just like the retail versions. These games were organized by genre, such as Action, Fighting, Adventure, and Family. Text-based instruction manuals for each game could also be accessed through a separate help menu download. Each month, there was a special theme with originally composed music, artwork and game categories.
Some unique content was released through the service:
- Special "test drives" for up-and-coming titles were provided. In some, after a certain time limit (15 minutes), gameplay was terminated, and the player was returned to the menu. Other games had limited content; for example Primal RagePrimal RagePrimal Rage is a versus fighting game developed and published by Atari Games in 1994 as an arcade video game. Toys, comics, a novel and other merchandise tie-ins were also produced.-Storyline:...
had only two characters playable. - Some games had to be altered due to transmission limits; such as Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition only having six playable fighters and Sonic 3D Blast being split into two halves where the player had to enter a code they had received by finishing Part 1 to download and start Part 2.
- Special modifications of existing retail games were made for Sega Channel, the most popular of which was a special version of Earthworm JimEarthworm JimEarthworm Jim is a run and gun platform video game starring an earthworm named Jim in a robotic suit who battles evil. Created by Doug TenNapel and designed by David Perry, the game was developed by Shiny Entertainment and Playmates Interactive Entertainment, released by Sega for the Mega...
by Shiny EntertainmentShiny EntertainmentShiny Entertainment was an American video game developer based in Laguna Beach, Southern California, and the creator of several popular titles such as Earthworm Jim, MDK, Sacrifice and The Matrix: Path of Neo. Shiny was founded by David Perry in October 1993...
. - Some games not released in the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
were featured as "Sega Channel Exclusives", such as PulsemanPulsemanPulseman is an action platform game developed by Game Freak and published by Sega for the Mega Drive in 1994. The game was released in cartridge format only in Japan, with the North American version being released via the Sega Channel as an "exclusive"...
, Alien SoldierAlien Soldieris a side-scrolling run and gun video game developed by Treasure for the Sega Mega Drive. The game was released in Japan and Europe, but not in the US , but it can be rather expensive due to its rarity in either region...
, Golden Axe IIIGolden Axe IIIis the last installment in the Golden Axe series released for the Sega Mega Drive on June 25, 1993. The cartridge unit was only released in Japan while the North American release was a Sega Channel exclusive....
and Mega Man: The Wily WarsMega Man: The Wily WarsMega Man: The Wily Wars, released in Japan as is a video game compilation by Capcom for the Sega Mega Drive. The game features remakes of the first three Mega Man games that were originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The Wily Wars was released in cartridge format in Japan and...
, among several others. - Cheats and tips could be accessed on the service and appeared while the games were downloading.
- Throughout the service's life, contests were held, where players could win arcade machines, projection TVs, BMX bikes, etc.
The service was also available in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
through Shaw Cable
Shaw Communications
Shaw Communications is Canada's largest telecommunications company that provides telephone, Canada's fastest Internet and television services as well as broadcasting and soon Wifi. Shaw is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta...
, in some parts of the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on certain cable services, in Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
on the defunct Metropolis Intercom cable company, in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
on a national TCI branch, Cablevisión TCI. and in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
on Austar
Austar
Austar is an Australian telecommunications company. Its main business activity is Subscription Television but it is also involved with internet access and mobile phones...
and the now defunct Galaxy.
To provide Sega Channel, a cable company would need to install new equipment into their headend, integrate service authorization into their sales center, and purchase the game adapters. Game adapters were manufactured by Scientific-Atlanta
Scientific-Atlanta
Scientific Atlanta Inc is a Georgia-based manufacturer of cable television, telecommunications, and broadband equipment.Scientific Atlanta was founded in 1951 by a group of engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and was purchased by Cisco Systems in 2005.-Products:Scientific Atlanta is...
and General Instrument
General Instrument
General Instrument was an electronics manufacturer based in Horsham, PA specializing in semiconductors and cable television equipment. The company was active until 1997, when it split into which was later acquired by Vishay Intertechnology in 2001, CommScope and NextLevel Systems General...
, with a cost to the cable operators of approximately $100 per unit. Additionally, many cable operators had to clean their broadcast signal in the head-end and all the way to "the pole" to ensure that the signal could be received. Sega, a gaming company, thus played a major role in improving infrastructure for future digital cable
Digital cable
Digital cable is a generic term for any type of cable television distribution using digital video compression or distribution. The technology was originally developed by Motorola.-Background:...
services, as well as broadband Internet access and digital telephone services. At its peak, Sega Channel was available to one-third of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and had 250,000 subscribers.
Sega Channel was not a video-on-demand service per se; rather, as the service's name would suggest, it actually was a broadcast channel, similar to premium broadcast channels which (at the time) required a separate piece of addressable cable converter equipment to access. The program code for the on-screen menus and the 50 available monthly games was continuously broadcast as a sort-of "sequential access" RF signal. The menu system would be loaded into memory on power-up (which took about 30 seconds), and when a game was selected, the machine would "wait" for the requisite program code to be broadcast, then download it into volatile RAM. A downloaded game could not be garnered—upon hitting the adapter's reset button or powering off the console, it was erased from memory, and the user was required to download it again, if desired (The menu system would have to be re-loaded into memory also). Hitting the console's reset button while a game was loaded would perform normally.
This method of accessing program content was very ahead of its time, and had only been tried once before, with Mattel's Intellivision
Intellivision
The Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. The word intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television"...
platform. With all the electromagnetic "noise" inherent in older RG-59 coaxial cabling, downloading games could be problematic at times—such noise could and did disrupt transmission of binary images 4–32 megabits in size (as well as the menu system). If this were to happen, the download would fail, in which case the user would be required to reset the console and try again.
Special accessories for certain games, such as the Lethal Enforcers
Lethal Enforcers
Lethal Enforcers is a 1992 shooting game released for the arcades by Konami. It is best known for its revolver-shaped light gun known as the Konami Justifier, its digitized graphics, and the controversy over its content.Home versions were released for the Super NES, Sega Genesis and Sega CD during...
Justifier
Konami Justifier
The Konami Justifier was a light gun used in numerous video arcade and home console games developed and/or published by Konami and Sega. Konami manufactured variations of the gun for the Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Super Nintendo, and PlayStation consoles. The gun was similar in appearance to a Colt...
, posed a problem: users were warned not to leave them plugged in when they reset the console—otherwise, the Sega Channel adapter could be permanently damaged.
Sega Channel ultimately ended due to the retirement of the Sega Genesis game platform and the difficult economics for the cable operators. The service ended on July 31, 1998, as the developers determined that the limited lifespan of the 16-bit technology was at risk due to the emergence of next-generation 32- and 64-bit technologies used by console developers Sega, Sony and Nintendo, coupled with the explosive growth of the Internet.
There were two different versions of the Sega Channel adapter, which were completely different in appearance—the first was manufactured by Scientific-Atlanta
Scientific-Atlanta
Scientific Atlanta Inc is a Georgia-based manufacturer of cable television, telecommunications, and broadband equipment.Scientific Atlanta was founded in 1951 by a group of engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and was purchased by Cisco Systems in 2005.-Products:Scientific Atlanta is...
, and the second by General Instrument
General Instrument
General Instrument was an electronics manufacturer based in Horsham, PA specializing in semiconductors and cable television equipment. The company was active until 1997, when it split into which was later acquired by Vishay Intertechnology in 2001, CommScope and NextLevel Systems General...
. Each adapter required a separate (included) 15-volt AC adapter to operate. Adapters were supposed to be returned to cable operators upon cancellation of the service; nevertheless, some of them still exist in the hands of collectors.
Technical Information
The Sega Channel signal originated in Denver, CO. It was carried over the Galaxy 7 satellite, located 91.0 degrees W longitude using transponder 1 with horizontal polarization.The uplink signal was at a carrier frequency of 1.435 GHz and occupied 8 MHz bandwidth using QPSK modulation.
The downlink signal was at a frequency of 1.1 GHz and occupied 6 MHz bandwidth using QPSK.
Subscriber Loop
- occupied two 3 MHz non-contiguous channels
- data rate was 6 Mbit/s
- tunable to 68 different operating frequencies between 51 and 118 MHz
- Bit error ratioBit error ratioIn digital transmission, the number of bit errors is the number of received bits of a data stream over a communication channel that have been altered due to noise, interference, distortion or bit synchronization errors....
was <10E-06 - used Quadrature Partial Response (QPR) modulation
QPR is a modulation scheme that uses a controlled inter-symbol interference. The receiver is capable of logically decoding the signal. QPR provides 20% better bandwidth performance than QPSK with only a minor increase in signal power.
This Sega Channel adapter allowed the customer to download the game selected in less than 1 minute. The adapter contained 4 MB DRAM, which held a game of up to 32 megabits in size. Once the game was downloaded, it worked exactly as if it were a cartridge. Sega also had ratings for each game and supplied the parents with a password (4 digit pin#) if so desired.
See also
- Atari 2600Atari 2600The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...
's GameLineGamelineThe CVC GameLine 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... - IntellivisionIntellivisionThe Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. The word intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television"...
's PlayCablePlayCableThe PlayCable system, introduced in 1981, allowed local cable-TV system operators to send Intellivision games over the wire alongside the normal TV signal... - Nintendo Entertainment SystemNintendo Entertainment SystemThe Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
's Famicom ModemFamicom ModemThe is a video game peripheral for Family Computer released only in Japan in 1988. It allowed the user access to a server that provided game cheats, jokes, weather forecasts, and a small amount of downloadable content. It could also be used to make live stock trades. Unlike the NES Teleplay Modem,...
and Teleplay ModemTeleplay ModemThe Teleplay Modem was a modem for the Nintendo Entertainment System created by Keith Rupp and Nolan Bushnell, designed to provide online play between NES users, while also possessing compatibility with the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. The first prototype, called the "Ayota Modem", had a... - Super FamicomSuper Nintendo Entertainment SystemThe Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
's SatellaviewSatellaviewThe is a satellite modem add-on for Nintendo's Super Famicom system that was released in Japan in 1995. Available for pre-release orders as early as February 13, 1995, the Satellaview retailed for between ¥14,000 and 18,000 and came bundled with the BS-X Game Pak and an 8M Memory Pak.The... - XBandXBANDXBAND was an early online console gaming network for SNES and Sega Genesis systems. It was produced by Catapult Entertainment, a Cupertino, California based software company, and made its debut in various areas of the United States in late 1994 and 1995...
- An early online gaming network.
External links
- Archive.org - Archive of the Sega Channel official homepage
- Business Wire - Sega Channel Cited by "Popular Science" as Among 1994's Outstanding Products and Technological Achievements
- Sega Channel: The First Real "Downloadable" Content - Article on the history of the service