In my time as a gamer I have tried many games, on many services, and many platforms, however out of all of these services, as good as they may be, none will ever be able to compete with the place SEGA Channel has in my heart.
In the early to mid 90’s console gaming was still coming out of its shell after some what of a rough start. We had systems like the Atari, NES and SEGA Genesis. I am not sure who the person responsible for the idea of coming up with a streaming game service that could be delivered through your local cable company was, but they were a genius. The SEGA Channel was a pay to play service that you could get through some cable providers (in my area it was Time Warner cable) over your coaxial cable. The internet was still in its very early stages and very few people had games on their home computer, if they even had one. Nothing like today where I am currently housing 3 gaming computers, and 3 laptops in my home. Not to include the rig I use as a personal server. It just wasn’t in the budget for any one back then.
Prior to the SEGA Channel, in order to get games we had a few options. We could buy them from local retailers, we could buy-trade-sell them at some local game centric pawn shops, or we could do what I believe the majority of us did. Rent them from the local blockbuster or grocery store. There is still a place in my heart for this. I vividly remember spending the night at a friends house, and his parents wanted to get late night coffee and rent a movie to watch over the weekend. We had a few options, but most of the time we found ourselves at the local Dillions (Kroger Owned) grocery store. The parents would grab some snacks for themselves while we each picked up a box of a less than healthy treat ourselves. Junior mints were my go to here. Then we would head over to the rental section of the store. This was a fairly large section that held the latest and greatest movies and of course, video games!
While the adults would likely already have a movie in mind, they indulged us while we spent way too long comparing games via the back of the boxes and arguing over which one would be the better choice. Finally after the parental count-down “You have to the count of 5 or you get nothing…” we would make our final selection leaving the rest to come back to the next week. From there we had a local coffee shop that they liked to stop by and grab a drink to go. While they got coffee, we were relegated to some sort of juice or caffeine free beverages. Parents had to sleep at some point right?
With our treasures in hand off to their house we would good. My buddy lived in the same neighborhood as I did so once we got home, I’d run to my house to grab a pillow and blanket and maybe an extra controller or accessory and race back to his house. From there, the parents would take the upstairs with the big TV, while we would zoom down to the basement to the toss in our first game of the night. These memories are ones I will always keep with me. So many great games, so many terrible games, it didn’t matter. It was gaming and it was special.
Later as we got older, we would collect cans from people’s houses on our street, or mow yards, or walk dogs, any number of things in order to get enough money to ride our bikes up to the store and rent some games, or buy some baseball card packs. (Whatever happened to those by the way mom?)
Unbeknownst to us, SEGA was about to change the way I could get games forever. Around the end of 1994, and in to 1995 your dear writer would be turning 12. During this time my home life was a bit tumultuous and thus I spent a great deal of my weekends at my friend Sam’s house. Sam was a kid I had met in our summer daycare days and we had hit it off very quickly. He too lived about a block away from me and we fast became best friends. Visiting each others houses, and going on neighborhood adventures every day in the summer, and every weekend it seemed. Sam was the first kid I had met like me, who’s parents were no longer together. This was pretty uncommon back then, way more so than it is now. So we sort of bonded over the fact.
One evening while spending the night at Sam’s we saw an advertisement for the SEGA Channel. It was a channel you could get on TV that would allow you to access 50 games. The games would rotate monthly. Some would stay others would leave. Immediately Sam went to his mother and bless her soft heart, she set up the SEGA Channel like a week later.
Of course another sleep over had to happen, and of course it would be at Sam’s house. It was amazing. I don’t even think we played more than 10 minutes of any game the first night. It only took about 5 minutes or so to download the next game and play it, truly amazing for that time period. We tried everything they had to offer. We would download a Sonic game, play a few minutes each, then download a Mega Man game, then Super Street Fighter. They also had demos you could try of games not out yet. Gone were the days of running up to the store and coming home with a dud of a game that you were stuck with for the whole weekend. Instead if a game was bad, you just went to the next. If a game was good, you marked it down and went to the next. Eventually after trying all of the games available, we would argue over which one we should play, and why his younger brother Kyle shouldn’t get a turn. (Sorry Kyle, we were jerks.)
Some of our favorites were General Chaos, GEMFIRE, Road Rash, Skitchin’ every Mega Man game, Earthworm Jim, and many many others. Eventually SEGA came out with the Saturn and so we moved on with our lives. However I will never forget the many evenings spent scrolling through game after game and how much fun I had at those sleep overs. We would go one to have many more adventures during those sleep overs, such as getting on the internet when everyone was asleep making our own online club on AOL to rival the AOL ANT’s gaming section. Lots of chat rooms we should never have been in, creating our first websites on Angelfire and GeoCities dedicated to wrestling and game cheat codes and guides. I plan on writing more about these younger days of my life at some point in the future. Until then, they will remain vivid memories of one of the best times of my life. I would love to hear what amazing memories you have from gaming, and what got you started. Let me know in the comment section below.
Thanks for reading, and happy gaming everyone!
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