Downloading console games in the ‘90s with the Sega Channel
I think most folks would be surprised to learn that certain consoles in the 1980s could download games, long before that became more common on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. And while the Sega Channel, Sega’s 16-bit Genesis game download service, wasn’t the very first, it was likely the most successful early attempt at such a service, and in 2023 still feels like a real tease of the future.
Starting in 1994, Sega offered the Sega Channel, a service that used a special adapter connected to your Genesis to let you download and play new games. It worked well too, only taking a few minutes to download a full game. The service ended in 1998, but Sega correctly guessed that one day most people would just download all their games.
