The Sega Channel

The best years of my gaming life came from this service!

Before XBOX Live, before PS2 & PS3’s online play, and even before some online PC games, there was the Sega Channel! I’d like to share my memories of one of the best inventions in video gaming history.
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Most kids were lucky if the Sega Channel was even offered in their area. Lucky for me, Time Warner Cable ran “test runs” in our area to see how the reaction was. The Sega Channel cost $14.95 per month with a $25 activation fee. No other charges applied. Each month gave you access to 50 games of various genres. A lot of people think each game cost money, but infact $14.95 paid for the whole service per month. There’s a lot of misconception of how the Sega Channel worked. I’d love to give you a huge description of that, but instead, I’d like to share my memories of it.
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Back then, Cable TV in my area went up to channel 52. If you mannually entered channel 99 on your remote control you could “see” the Sega-Channel running through its demo! They must have had a Sega Genesis console with the Sega Channel cartridge running all day, and broadcasted it on channel 99. This channel took over my life!! 90% of the time, it would repeat game demo’s. – (You know, when you leave your console to get some food, and the demo runs by itself?) I remember “Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine” ran for almost two weeks. I became obsessed with this game just by watching the demo’s. I wanted to play it so bad but none of the retail stores near me had it! If you were lucky, you were able to witness the Sega Channel being restarted by (someone) at the cable station.
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The screen would show a 16-bit image of a Sega Genesis sitting on a table, with a large cartridge purtruding from the top, and a “cord” coming out of into the wall. Then, Sonic the Hedghog jumped out from the left side of the screen, ran across the table, and jumped on the power button. This caused a “lump” (much like water in a plugged fire hose on cartoons) to come through the “cord” from the wall, to the cartridge. This caused Sega-Pat (Sega Channel’s mascot) to leap off of the cartridge, and jump towards you into the screen. The next image was Sega Pat holding a TV and a Genesis remote control with the words SEGA CHANNEL below him. He stood in front of a black background with stars, which shifted back-n-forth. These stars would sometimes slow down. This was an indication of the system loading from the service provider.

Once loaded, the main menu appeared. This was like heaven! Categories like Action, Fighting, Adventure, Family, and Puzzles made my eyes glow! There was also a category called Test Drives, which allowed you to play un-released or new released games, with some limitations.

When I managed to catch this “restart” while watching channel 99, I absolutley had to have the Sega Channel. I went down our local Time Warner Cable office in Jamestown NY with my mom. They had a table set up with so much literature on the Sega Channel. They would also print off a list you could take with you that had each month’s list of games weeks before that month started!
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After months of convincing, I awoke on christmas morning. Two of my presents consited of a 13” television for my bedroom, and the Sega Channel!!!!!! (This was also the year I got the Sega Nomad, which was a huge failure.)

I had to install it. I couldn’t wait for my dad any longer… So using my 12 yr. old mind, I figured it out and with an activation phone call (which I had to make the day atfer christmas, grr!), I was online! I can’t describe to you the feeling I got all over my body when I turned on the power, and saw the 16-bit image of a genesis on a table, and sonic jumped out…. Mmmm, It was mine… I wasn’t watching it, or wishing anymore. It was mine!!!!!!!!!!

Aside from my excitement, the Sega Channel did have its problems. Since cable lines were analog back then (before cable internet turned cable lines into much stronger, digital lines), it would sometimes get stuck on the loading screen. My mom would have to call Time Warner so they could send a “boost” through the cable. This worked everytime. It may have been superstition, but everytime I unplugged the Sega Channel from its power source, it never seemed to load the next power up. My mom had a huge phobea of fires, so this would happen all the time and I’d get so angry.
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The Sega Channel offered so many titles to choose from, and they changed each month which made it even better!! I remember my favorites being Earthworm Jim (which Sega Channel offered an ‘unreleased’ version of to sega channel subscribers) and Theme Park. I played Theme Park all the time. Theme Park is the game that paved the way for Rollercoaster Tycoon. The whole time you built your park before opening, it looped the circus theme music… over n over n over n over. This drove my parents batty! Some other games I enjoyed were Bomberman, monopoly, road rash, and of course, Skitchen! There were titles for all age groups and gender. Barbie games, My Little Pony, etc. (I’m not gonna lie, I played them just cuz it didn’t cost me anything!)
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Games didn’t take too long to load either. Not much longer than a typical PS2 or PC game. Since it was an analog cable system, the closer you were to Time Warner, the faster your service. During loading screens, it would offer you hints and cheats to other games, or that game specifically. I shared a room with my sister at that time and I had the bottem bunk The boards underneith her bed are still littered with black marker, which marked cheats and codes from my Sega Channel years. Cheat magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly and GamePro would also have two page spreads each month with the current month’s Sega Channel Games which game cheats and hints for most of the games!
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I think the Sega Channel was a great invention. Sega went out on a limb and took a chance to offer their customers the FIRST easy and convenient way to play all of their games from the comfort of home. I ended up buying a lot of the games that I loved the most, where if it weren’t for the Sega Channel, I never would have wasted money on renting/buying. Unfortunatly the Sega Channcel only lasted until 1997 when the Sega Genesis was pushed out by the likes of Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn, Playstation, etc.

Today’s gaming industry should use Sega Channel as a model to bring back this type of service. You can pay $15 a month for XBOX live, and play games you’ve already shelled out $60 for… Or they can regenerate a service like the Sega Channel and offer a flat monthly rate which gives you access to all licensed titles. It’s a shame that many people weren’t exposed to the Sega Channel. It was the best 2 years of my gaming life, by far. Thanks for sharing this memory with me. Hope you enjoyed.

Credits to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Channel - Sega Channel info, logo, and Time warner logo.
http://www.google.com – Images (from image search)
http://www.yahoo.com – Images (from image search)

Comments

I fondly remember the sega channel. I had it for about 1.5~2 years, cancelled it about 4 months before it went under. If only I had known it'd go under, I would have hung on until the end, so I could have kept all the hardware. I seriously wish someone would come up with a sega channel frontend for emulators. Have it have the classic music, some of the artwork, etc.
During the time I had it, it started out being 50 games/month, then it dropped down to 40 games, but refreshed every 2 weeks. Whenever they refreshed the games, they would only change about half of them, then change the other half the next time.
The sega channel was definitely a love/hate thing. On one hand, it had massive ammounts of charm, and the ability to play any of 40~50 games any time you wanted ruled. On the other hand, waiting for the games to load was no fun, waiting an eternity & then getting the error screen saying the download got borked and you had to reboot sucked, games often glitched (probably due to some minor glitch in the download, possibly some hardware issue), games without password saves couldn't be saved, nor could you just leave the system on to maintain your game because it would crash after a number of hours.
Nonetheless, I loved the sega channel overall & wish it still existed.

I never knew there was a Sega Channel. -_- lol

Nice article! I didn't think other people had such a fond recollection of Sega Channel as I did, but I was wrong. For those who are on here that weren't around in the mid-90's...it was a great time to be a gamer, not bashing today's games or anything because I enjoy playing them as well but I think I have spent more time playing Sega Channel than any other sort of gaming service. I am an avid Nintendo fan and supporter and I was as a kid too, but for the time that I was at my friend Josh's house (who had Sega Channel, which would result in week-long sleepovers during the summer) I would put aside my differences to play the Genesis. After my friend had moved away, they changed the Sega Channel rotation from new games every month to every two weeks in a desperate attempt to get more people to subscribe and unfortunately it died in '97 as the article states. Another interesting thing is that we once sent a letter of a wish-list of games we would have liked to seen on the Sega Channel and got a letter back a few weeks later informing us of all the licensing agreements and things like that that take place in order to get a game onto Sega Channel and it included two small sets of 2 pogs for our efforts (One was of Sonic, the other of Knuckles which were pretty cool looking). But I definitely look back on those days as a time I enjoyed most in my life!

I owned a Sega Genesis, too, and I never had the Sega Channel back then. It was just cartridges, no Nomad, no Sega Channel, no Sega game service from Time Warner Cable (we still have it in my area today), nothing but approximately 15 cartriges that I had, including the epic Sega Genesis 6-Pak six-in-one game cartridge. Three of those games are on the Sega Genesis Collection for the Playstation 2, which both the system and game disc I definitely own, and that would be Columns, Golden Axe, and Sonic. Also on there are some that also were on the Sega Channel, such as Golden Axe 3 (released only in Japan and was on the Sega Channel in the United States for an evanescent time period), Comix Zone, Ecco Jr., Ristar, to name just a few. Sadly, the other three on the Genesis 6-Pak that are not in the SGC Playstation 2 disc would be Super Hang-On (a motorcycle racing game), The Revenge of Shinobi, and Streets of Rage.

AWSOME BLOG on the sega channel. my brother and i recived this as a christmas gift and loved til the day our parents told us it had to go back as it was no longer being offered. i as well reside in jamestown,ny and back in 1995 when this was being offered as a service, our cable provider was called PARAGON CABLE and was located on 3rd street across from the former quality markers A.K.A. farm fresh foods. my mom still posses the agrement docs. that she sign to recive the sega channel. so very sad that such a wonderful service only laster a few years. im afrad never again will such a service will be offered. i was 15 @ the time and thought this was the best of times. on the 1st of each month id be right @ the game system looking for the updated list of new games. thanks again (DJBRIGUY) for taking the time to stroll back to memory lane and relive these much more simpler times.

We had the Sega Channel for about a year. The problem was the box kept on breaking down so we would lose service. We went through ten of those boxes in the whole year we owned it. I really liked the test drives section although my favorite games on it were Road Rash and Monopoly. It would be nice to see something like this again and it's a sin nobody's tried it since.

Well then Frightwolf maybe you should write an article called "I heart XBOX live"

You can purchase XBOX live in many different ways, and when this article was written a YEAR AGO, $15 a month was one of them.

Oh man! I had Sega Channel back when I was like 6-7 or 7-8. I kept it until it was canceled. Boy, I had a lot of great memories from that. All those Sonic games, Toe Jam and Earl, and Garfield (I believe that was on the test drive) were fun as hell. Me and my cousin had a blast playing the Golden Axe series, Batman and Robin, X-Men 2, and the Road Rash series. Comix Zone was also a kickass, original game. Those were some of my fondest memories of my childhood. >_>

See, this is what I don't like about some of the RJ articles -- I do love you guys going back in time and helping me to relive great services like this, but you compliment these things at the expense of what's popular in the now, and you don't even have all your facts straight.

XBox Live is not $15 a month; it's $50 for an entire year. That's $180 vs. $50. Big difference. It's more than just playing games you've already shelled out money for -- there are downloads, demos, wallpapers, talking to people far away via webcam (which is what I'll be doing with my bro when I go up to the University of Florida this Spring), and the Live Arcade that you can also take advantage of (Live Arcade allows you to play a lot of old games, as well, like Sonic, Super Contra, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, etc., plus Live-specific games like Bomberman Live).

If you're going to compliment a service like Sega Channel, which deserves praise (and it would be cool if something similar to this was released again), then just do so and don't denigrate services like Live or any other online network (PS3's is free) without first getting your facts straight. The same thing happened in RJ's "2D Animation > 3D Animation" article.

I remember reading about the Sega Channel here in florida. I honestly thought it would be the furure of gaming. I was right, just off by 10 years or more i suppose. It would have been better than BBS systems for computers if only local play was free.

I loved Sega Channel when it came out. I remember that my dad subscribed to it, and it was always great going to his house to play Sega Channel.

I remember when it went from new games each month, to new games every 2 weeks. Then it got even more exciting. That means that every other week when I would go visit my dad, there would be 50 new games for me to play.

Take into account during this entire time I was a HUGE Nintendo fan, and did not care for Sega too much, but this device made it a very cool system. I still have memories of when the game Flinstones was released in the "Test Drive" section of the channel, and you were only given 30 minutes until it took you back to the main menu. I remmber being up at midnight, playing that game, and trying to get as far as I could before the system cut out on me. That was some good times.

I remember that one of the bad aspects of the device was the fact that it only allowed you the "battery" space to save one RPG at a time. So, if that month they had the first 3 Phantasy Star's out, then you had to choose only one game to save for that month. I remember a few times accidently saving another game on the system when my dad has spent a lot of time on the other games. Oops, sorry dad!

Overall this was a great device, that strangly, helped me bond even closer with my wife. My wife, as a child too had Sega Channel. It was also funny that one of my favorite games, as well as her's was Skitchin'. I loved to play that game on Sega Channel, and when she told me that she did too, it brought us closer in way never seen before. So do you see the real premis behind the great invention Sega Channel? It is to bring couples together in a harmony of old Sega Gennis memories.

Sega Channel was the sh*t. I had it and I played the games all day long. Too bad Sega aint around anymore (well they are, but not in the console biz) They were always so innovative for their time. Even though the Sega CD was a complete stinker (the technology just wasnt there yet) it was groundbreaking and it paved the way for all the CD based games we see today.

Sega Channel was a legend when I was a kid. I had it shortly after it's launch (for good grades) and my friends wouldn't believe me that I had it. Not until they came over to witness it's awe did they believe me. It was a different time then. None of my friends internet to test the validity of such things.

It's probably why I have so many Genesis games now. It was seriously a dream come true to have 50 games a month. That was the first time I played "Golden Axe III" since it was only available on Megadrive before that.

I remember staying up late to play the new games that would launch the first of each month (at midnight). Great article here, stirred up a lot of memories for me.

I do remember this service. It was offered in my area but I was a nintendo man at the time. I think that sega's idea was way idea of their time and its unfortunate that they didnt bank of this idea. Great article.

jamestown new york. 1 hr south of buffalo ny.

P.S- I'm from Philly. We had up to 52 channels too. Where are you from?

Thank God you wrote this article!!!!! I was beginning to think that I was crazy and that this never existed!! I would mention it to people and they would say that there was no such thing. But I knew all a long!!!!! And I'm so glad that I'm not the only one who remembers.

I had the Sega Channel in my area a few weeks after it came out, it was an awsome feature that would be a good idea even today. All those sega games, without having to change the cartridge!

Sega Channel seemed sweet the way you put it.

Well written article. Good work.

Every time I visit my cousin we play on the Sega Channel. We played Ballz, ToeJam & Earl, X-Men, and Sonic 2. My favorite game out of that bunch was the Batman game (I don't remember the title of the game). I was always Robin (being a huge sidekick fan) and me and my cousin would get destroyed very easily. I think I beat the Joker like once in that game and when I did Two-Face bombed the stuffing out of me. Good times. I looked at just about every single Batman game to see if I can find it but I had no luck.

I remeber this It freaking rocked so much I loved playing all of those games I don't remeber having it for long but it still was awsome and I loved it to death.

its nothing like xbox live... with xbox live, u have to own the games you play on the service

I've heard of this but never bought or got one. It kinda sounds a little like Gametap as well as Xbox live.

Gr8 article!

Yeah here in Houston we had it, we never had cable, and i had the Super Nintendo..but I did manage to play this at my cousins house.. I was actually there to play it the day they had it installed, and they werent even there to enjoy it! but yeah it was a cool invention..

Sega Channel was so great. I remember getting up really early on the first of every month to see what new games were on there.

never heard of this till now, wish they had an SNES version.

Nintendo Wii lets you buy old nintedo games for cheap.

Bummer, i've never even heard of the Sega channel. That would've been awesome.

IMO... SEGA CHANNEL WAS THE GREATEST THING IN GAMING! I received my sega genesis for christmas when I was 9 yrs. old in 1995 (yes my first console, But I had the Amiga(still have the Amiga 100,1200,4000)!!!) My family picked up Sega Channel a day or two after Christmas. My best memories of sega are are owed to sega channel. $15 a month for a 50 games? A BARGAIN! I'd would get up early on schooldays at the beginning of every month just to check the latest games on Sega Channel. It would be nice to see something like this again, but I suppose the closest thing is GameTap which I have been considering subscribing to. I've all ways wanted to contribute an article to this site about sega channel or the amiga computer, but I'm a horrible writer. Your article is perfect. Thumbs up from me! (*still has the sega channel cartridge and tries to plug it in...NOOOOOO!!!!!*)

I only got to play this once at my cousins house in Houston in 94-95. It was a blast playing it.

The only game I recalled playing was Sonic 2. There were a couple others but I cant remember what they were. I remember vividly looking forward to playing it again when I visited her the next few months later, however, much to my sadness, the cable company she had stopped offering it.

This was the reason I wanted to get a Sega G. My parents said that my SNES was enough though.

Here's the Sega Channel startup screen!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUduwU33VHQ

And here's a commercial for Sega Channel!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsRhBWLgCE8

thanks for the feed back guys and gals.
ladyellie, my sister and i loved that game too, thanks for reminding me about it!!

Oh good lord, I remember the Sega Channel! It was one of our early Christmas presents in '96, and my sister and I lived off of it. We'd play this one volleyball game where we could spike the ball so hard it'd knock players on the other team over. My sister and I found this so amusing we'd fall over laughing.

My nephews had this. I wasn't really a hardcore game player, but It made me much more willing to babysit for my sister.

My Neighbor Had It I Was Alway Over Playing It And I Had A Kid In My High Skool Who Was Obsessed With It Even Tho It Was 2002 And Sega Channel Stopped Working 6 Years Before And According To Him He Never Had It

we need more stuff like this

Was that for real? I've never heard of that! It sounds awesome!

i loved the sega channel, i remeber thinking the future is hear lol.