Our project to preserve the history of Sega Channel — including over 100 new Sega Channel ROMs.
By Phil Salvador
December 15, 2025
Sega broke ground in the late 90s with one of the first digital game distribution systems for consoles. Sega Channel offered access to a rotating library of Sega Genesis titles, along with game tips, demos, and even a few exclusive games that never came out in the United States in any other format. In an era of dial-up internet, Sega Channel delivered game data over television cable — a novel approach that gave the service its name.
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I feel like they really glossed over the “how” part, other than saying it was delivered over “television cable”.
I have to assume they just broadcast the file on repeat in some sort of code and the Sega could then interpret that and save it as a game file.
But then they mentioned they experimented with a Web browser?
I thought they were experimenting with teletext, a precursor to the world wide web. Maybe its unrelated. The article really should have some sort of explanation or at least link to articles:
