ComradeHuxley
Donor
Recently I came across an article about broadcasting game code over radio, which was pretty intruiging but I found the mentioning of the Nintendo Satellaview the most facscinating and at least to me most surprsingly obscure venture. Any idea how to get it more successfull or at least better renembered in the world outside Japan?
Here is as short excerpt from the wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview):
The Satellaview[a] is a satellite modem peripheral produced by Nintendo for the Super Famicom in 1995. Containing 1 megabit of ROM space and an additional 512 kB of RAM, Satellaview allowed players to download games, magazines, and other media through satellite broadcasts provided by Japanese company St.GIGA. Its heavy third-party support included Squaresoft, Taito, Konami, Capcom, and Seta. To use Satellaview, players purchased a special broadcast satellite (BS) tuner directly from St.GIGA or rented one for a six-month fee, and paid monthly subscription fees to both St.GIGA and Nintendo. It attaches to the expansion port on the bottom of the Super Famicom.
Satellaview was never released outside Japan, which some publications cited as being due to expensive costs of digital satellite broadcasting, and due to a supposed lack of appeal to American consumers. When the service first launched, St.GIGA had a number of issues regarding broadcasting video games and video game-related services through the Satellaview service, such as legal issues with other companies and technical restraints of the time. In June 1996, Nintendo announced a potential partnership with Microsoft to release a similar service for Windows, which would combine St.GIGA's broadcasting services with dial-up Internet; this was never launched.
Here is as short excerpt from the wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview):
The Satellaview[a] is a satellite modem peripheral produced by Nintendo for the Super Famicom in 1995. Containing 1 megabit of ROM space and an additional 512 kB of RAM, Satellaview allowed players to download games, magazines, and other media through satellite broadcasts provided by Japanese company St.GIGA. Its heavy third-party support included Squaresoft, Taito, Konami, Capcom, and Seta. To use Satellaview, players purchased a special broadcast satellite (BS) tuner directly from St.GIGA or rented one for a six-month fee, and paid monthly subscription fees to both St.GIGA and Nintendo. It attaches to the expansion port on the bottom of the Super Famicom.
Satellaview was never released outside Japan, which some publications cited as being due to expensive costs of digital satellite broadcasting, and due to a supposed lack of appeal to American consumers. When the service first launched, St.GIGA had a number of issues regarding broadcasting video games and video game-related services through the Satellaview service, such as legal issues with other companies and technical restraints of the time. In June 1996, Nintendo announced a potential partnership with Microsoft to release a similar service for Windows, which would combine St.GIGA's broadcasting services with dial-up Internet; this was never launched.