The Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) has made a significant leap in the preservation of gaming history. The organization recently announced the remarkable recovery of more than 140 ROMs originally from the bygone Sega Channel. This batch includes exclusive games once assumed forever lost and a collection of hitherto unpublished prototypes.
The Sega Channel, established in 1994, was a pioneer amongst subscription-based, digital game services. It introduced a completely novel approach to experiencing games, transferring fresh game titles and content directly into players’ gaming consoles via a TV cable. Sadly, this service was discontinued in 1998, and the exclusive games and content it offered were considered irretrievable.
The VGHF decided to delve into the Sega Channel’s unique history with the intention of safeguarding its content. With the assistance of Michael Shorrock, the former Vice-President of Programming for the Sega Channel, and an ardent Sega fan possessing a set of Sega Channel backup tapes, they endeavored to retrieve the full narrative of the Sega Channel.
Their determined pursuit culminated in the preservation of 144 new ROMs and the genesis of a digital library offering a wide panorama of the Sega Channel including Shorrock’s personal notes, unveiling details about the service. This library also casts light on a planned yet undisclosed successor service, ‘Express Games’, and comprises a documentary called ‘Don’t Just Watch TV: The Secrets of Sega Channel’ which is now accessible on YouTube.
Elevating this endeavor, VGHF also acquired a collection of ROMs containing rare prototypes and games. This includes an unseen Sega Genesis web browser and diverse undumped variants of Sega Channel-exclusive games such as ‘Garfield: Caught in the Act – The Lost Levels’ and ‘The Flintstones’. VGHF reveals, both of these games were the result of repurposed projects initially abandoned, only to find a new home on the Sega Channel.
Additional files containing heretofore unpreserved Sega Channel editions of games like ‘Super Street Fighter II’, are also part of this assemblage. ‘Super Street Fighter II’ underwent content adaptation to align with the Sega Channel’s file-size constraint. Other linear games were virtually bisected accommodating the file size limit, with players requiring a password to access the game’s second part. Additionally, the Foundation retained split versions and various ‘test drive’ versions of games like ‘Earthworm Jim’ and ‘The Lost World: Jurassic Park’; permitting Sega Channel gamers an early experience before the official release.
The Foundation states, ‘Almost all outstanding Sega Channel games are accounted for in this recovery project.’ There’s a high possibility that a digital backup version of every Sega Genesis game released in the United States now exists due to this project.
The preservation of the Sega Channel is one among many VGHF successes this year. In August, the Foundation announced a free-to-access digital resource library for fans, historians, and researchers, comprising over 30,000 files spanning across 50 years of video game history. More recently, the organization publicized acquiring the rights to publish a digital archive for ‘Computer Entertainer’, an early video game magazine.
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