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I read the article, but failed to understand what the satellite service was. Did they "stream". Was like twitch? Or did they stream a game over satellite and pl

I read the article, but failed to understand what the satellite service was. Did they "stream". Was like twitch? Or did they stream a game over satellite and player could play while game data was being streamed? If the latter, how did the voice over work?

InvisibleUp 3y ago
The latter. According to this wiki I found [1] the audio was muxed in with the program data, and then separated by the Satellaview satellite box. This audio would then get mixed in with the Super Famicom's audio output and sent to the TV. [1] https://wiki.superfamicom.org/satellaview-soundlink https://wiki.superfamicom.org/satellaview-soundlink
a1o 3y ago
The Satellaview service was a cartridge plus service combo that gave access to small games you could play on the SNES. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview#/media/File%3ASatellaview_system.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview#/media/File%3ASa... There are ROMS available online for some games that existed and there are lists of all games, from the above I think the person found VHS footage from people playing the SNES with some specific f-zero tracks and from knowledge of the existing ROMs of f-zero used the VHS footage to reconstruct the track data, which I think is mostly tile positions, at least afaik the Satellaview games that were additions to existing games usually didn't add graphics only remixed what the game content was. I think I remember playing a Zelda that was just the map from the NES one with different objectives, so I am going from that.
kmeisthax 3y ago
Game data would be downloaded ahead of time; the Satellaview came with a game cartridge[0] that gave you a system menu in the form of a JRPG town that looked a bit like EarthBound's Onett. It also had a second slot on the BS-X cartridge that accepted a memory card for storing game downloads onto. For SoundLink games, the voiceovers would be streamed from a satellite radio channel while the game ran, and they could also issue game commands. Obviously this also meant you could only play a SoundLink game while it was being broadcast. There were periodic reruns in case you missed a game. The closest modern example I could think of would actually be something like 1 vs 100 on the Xbox 360, which only lasted for like a year if I remember. Other downloadable Satellaview games worked almost exactly like a modern digital download system. You'd have to download the game while it was being broadcast, but could play it later. Except some of them would also have a start-up limit (like 3DS demos) after which the game would expire and refuse to start. Those are easier to preserve than the SoundLink games, assuming you can find an old Satellaview memory pack with the game data still on it. Some of the 'games' were actually just magazines or text. There's some really odd ones we've discovered over the years. After Nintendo stopped supporting Satellaview[1], St.GIGA tried to repurpose the Satellaview as a program guide for their own satellite radio service using this feature. Interestingly, there's a handful of SNES games with the same Satellaview memory slot on them that BS-X does - for example, RPG Maker 2[2]. I'm imagining that they distributed RPG Maker games using Satellaview, but Wikipedia also says RPG Maker 2 was available as both a cartridge and a Satellaview download, which seems like it defeats the purpose of having the cartridge also accept Satellaview memory cards. BTW, if you think this is crazy, wait until you learn about the SEGA Channel, a cable modem that plugged into your Genesis[3]. [0] BS-X: The Story Of The Town Whose Name Was Stolen [1] Because, among other things, they wanted to build the N64 DD around RANDNet [2] Not to be confused with RPG Maker 2 on the PlayStation 2, which is actually RPG Maker 5, because international numbering. [3] Or Mega Drive. I didn't even know Europe had this until I checked Wikipedia!
- gmtree 3y ago
  holey moley that's amazing
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Back the 8 bit days there were radios that used to broadcast cassete tunes from ZX Spectrum and C64, if you were really lucky recording it, you would get a new game.
- MacNCheese23 3y ago
  For me this isnt that much "wow" - maybe for younger people? I mean 1995-96 is already pretty late for the Satellaview and SNES. 96 was already the time i played MMOs on my PC like Meridian 59 with real multiplayer and downloaded from the internet using a 14k/28k/56k modem in that order.
- nosrepa 3y ago
  I had the Sega Channel and I loved it.
phire 3y ago
It mostly acted like a digital storefront, or more an xbox gamepass of the 90s. Except instead of down games over an internet connection, it only had one-way communication. The satellite would just continually retransmit the same games every few min. When you selected a game to download, the Satellaview would wait for the next transmission to come around and save it to the 1MB flash card. You could then play the downloaded game more or less like any other cartridge. Many releases were just games that had previously been on retail cartridge. But some games (these soundlink games) were more of an event. Instead of simply downloading the game, there was a scheduled hour to tune in, and everyone would play the same game in parallel, with roughly the same progression. New game data would beamed down from the satellite continually, bypassing the 1MB limit. Most of this streaming data was CD quality audio, either narration (often live preformed narration) or music, but it could also stream code or graphics too. I understand it did have some ability to handle multiple tracks of audio, but most of the time the game was designed to work with only one track of audio, hence forcing the players down the same progression based on time.
- thret 3y ago
  That's a pretty cool concept given that it was almost 30 years ago!
  - retrac 3y ago
    Oh, the idea is even older. In 1980, video games downloaded over cable TV, was tested in a few US cities. Intellivision! Same basic idea. Cable service allowed very fast (1 Mbit/s approximately) transmission for the time, so games could transfer in seconds: : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayCable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayCable And Sega offered something similar in the USA in the early 1990s too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Channel I think Satellaview in Japan, was the first service of that kind, which was truly successful though.
  - jerf 3y ago
    More than 30 years ago. Believe it or not, the Intellivision has the same service, using the same basic technique in 1981: https://www.intvprime.com/intellivision-faq/intellivision-faq-section-2-0-hardware/#2.6%3a+What+was+PlayCable%3f https://www.intvprime.com/intellivision-faq/intellivision-fa... https://www.intvfunhouse.com/mattel/playcable.php https://www.intvfunhouse.com/mattel/playcable.php (The Atari 2600 got a competitor but despite being the older console it was released in 1983: https://www.wired.com/story/streaming-games-actually-started-the-80s/ https://www.wired.com/story/streaming-games-actually-started... ) So, 43 years ago.

InvisibleUp 3y ago

The latter. According to this wiki I found [1] the audio was muxed in with the program data, and then separated by the Satellaview satellite box. This audio would then get mixed in with the Super Famicom's audio output and sent to the TV. [1] https://wiki.superfamicom.org/satellaview-soundlink https://wiki.superfamicom.org/satellaview-soundlink

a1o 3y ago

The Satellaview service was a cartridge plus service combo that gave access to small games you could play on the SNES. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview#/media/File%3ASatellaview_system.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview#/media/File%3ASa... There are ROMS available online for some games that existed and there are lists of all games, from the above I think the person found VHS footage from people playing the SNES with some specific f-zero tracks and from knowledge of the existing ROMs of f-zero used the VHS footage to reconstruct the track data, which I think is mostly tile positions, at least afaik the Satellaview games that were additions to existing games usually didn't add graphics only remixed what the game content was. I think I remember playing a Zelda that was just the map from the NES one with different objectives, so I am going from that.

kmeisthax 3y ago

Game data would be downloaded ahead of time; the Satellaview came with a game cartridge[0] that gave you a system menu in the form of a JRPG town that looked a bit like EarthBound's Onett. It also had a second slot on the BS-X cartridge that accepted a memory card for storing game downloads onto. For SoundLink games, the voiceovers would be streamed from a satellite radio channel while the game ran, and they could also issue game commands. Obviously this also meant you could only play a SoundLink game while it was being broadcast. There were periodic reruns in case you missed a game. The closest modern example I could think of would actually be something like 1 vs 100 on the Xbox 360, which only lasted for like a year if I remember. Other downloadable Satellaview games worked almost exactly like a modern digital download system. You'd have to download the game while it was being broadcast, but could play it later. Except some of them would also have a start-up limit (like 3DS demos) after which the game would expire and refuse to start. Those are easier to preserve than the SoundLink games, assuming you can find an old Satellaview memory pack with the game data still on it. Some of the 'games' were actually just magazines or text. There's some really odd ones we've discovered over the years. After Nintendo stopped supporting Satellaview[1], St.GIGA tried to repurpose the Satellaview as a program guide for their own satellite radio service using this feature. Interestingly, there's a handful of SNES games with the same Satellaview memory slot on them that BS-X does - for example, RPG Maker 2[2]. I'm imagining that they distributed RPG Maker games using Satellaview, but Wikipedia also says RPG Maker 2 was available as both a cartridge and a Satellaview download, which seems like it defeats the purpose of having the cartridge also accept Satellaview memory cards. BTW, if you think this is crazy, wait until you learn about the SEGA Channel, a cable modem that plugged into your Genesis[3]. [0] BS-X: The Story Of The Town Whose Name Was Stolen [1] Because, among other things, they wanted to build the N64 DD around RANDNet [2] Not to be confused with RPG Maker 2 on the PlayStation 2, which is actually RPG Maker 5, because international numbering. [3] Or Mega Drive. I didn't even know Europe had this until I checked Wikipedia!

gmtree 3y ago
holey moley that's amazing
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Back the 8 bit days there were radios that used to broadcast cassete tunes from ZX Spectrum and C64, if you were really lucky recording it, you would get a new game.
MacNCheese23 3y ago
For me this isnt that much "wow" - maybe for younger people? I mean 1995-96 is already pretty late for the Satellaview and SNES. 96 was already the time i played MMOs on my PC like Meridian 59 with real multiplayer and downloaded from the internet using a 14k/28k/56k modem in that order.
nosrepa 3y ago
I had the Sega Channel and I loved it.

phire 3y ago

It mostly acted like a digital storefront, or more an xbox gamepass of the 90s. Except instead of down games over an internet connection, it only had one-way communication. The satellite would just continually retransmit the same games every few min. When you selected a game to download, the Satellaview would wait for the next transmission to come around and save it to the 1MB flash card. You could then play the downloaded game more or less like any other cartridge. Many releases were just games that had previously been on retail cartridge. But some games (these soundlink games) were more of an event. Instead of simply downloading the game, there was a scheduled hour to tune in, and everyone would play the same game in parallel, with roughly the same progression. New game data would beamed down from the satellite continually, bypassing the 1MB limit. Most of this streaming data was CD quality audio, either narration (often live preformed narration) or music, but it could also stream code or graphics too. I understand it did have some ability to handle multiple tracks of audio, but most of the time the game was designed to work with only one track of audio, hence forcing the players down the same progression based on time.

thret 3y ago
That's a pretty cool concept given that it was almost 30 years ago!
- retrac 3y ago
  Oh, the idea is even older. In 1980, video games downloaded over cable TV, was tested in a few US cities. Intellivision! Same basic idea. Cable service allowed very fast (1 Mbit/s approximately) transmission for the time, so games could transfer in seconds: : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayCable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayCable And Sega offered something similar in the USA in the early 1990s too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Channel I think Satellaview in Japan, was the first service of that kind, which was truly successful though.
- jerf 3y ago
  More than 30 years ago. Believe it or not, the Intellivision has the same service, using the same basic technique in 1981: https://www.intvprime.com/intellivision-faq/intellivision-faq-section-2-0-hardware/#2.6%3a+What+was+PlayCable%3f https://www.intvprime.com/intellivision-faq/intellivision-fa... https://www.intvfunhouse.com/mattel/playcable.php https://www.intvfunhouse.com/mattel/playcable.php (The Atari 2600 got a competitor but despite being the older console it was released in 1983: https://www.wired.com/story/streaming-games-actually-started-the-80s/ https://www.wired.com/story/streaming-games-actually-started... ) So, 43 years ago.