Xband (and miscellaneous pre-networking platforms)

I was thinking of a new thread to start and then the topic hit me: Xband. I can't recall any discussion about it here and the search brought up nothing so I thought it's about time us XBAND folks talk about this great little add-on.

I had the service for around 2 years I think...at least a year of playing everyday. I was on Genesis Xband (V.I.P. was my handle) and played MK2 (awesome) NHL 95 and a game of Live here and there. I have a lot of good memories on this one, I can vividly remember the thrill of waiting for a game and then the phone ringing. POW! the music changes the colors flash green and purple and it's an all out competition. I played the #1 MK2 player in the nation (whoa) a few times and got horribly trounced everytime. I made some cool friends during that time and during the height of the service, it was one of the greatest things around. Anyone else here a fan of Xband?

What was the lag like, when using that thing?

I heard of it once before, and it sounds awsome! How would the 2 competitors communicate? How did it attach to the genesis? Was there on for snes? did youhave to pay to play? How would you join games? ahh so many questions!

Also, I never had sega channel (but a friend did) so I was wondering, could you play sega channle online, or just download games? Also, would it save the games, or download them again everytime you wanted to play them? How much was it a month?

It was a big glorified cart that you put in the cart slot of the SNES and Genesis. That answers two of your questions. It's been WAY too long since I used the service to remember the other stuff.

My neighbor had this, I still can't believe there was no lag

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Originally posted by Psx
My neighbor had this, I still can't believe there was no lag

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There was no lag because it didn't go over the internet. Playing a game online required dialing up an access number to go directly to XBand servers. Playing the games, from a technology standpoint, was pretty much like calling up a person directly. No internet = much more reliable data pathways, much less packet loss, much less lag. There was an online service called DWANGO for the PC which was pretty much just like Xband, and it didnt have lag either.

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Originally posted by NApOLm321
I heard of it once before, and it sounds awsome! How would the 2 competitors communicate? How did it attach to the genesis? Was there on for snes? did youhave to pay to play? How would you join games? ahh so many questions!

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You could only communicate in a chat room after the game was over. Both people would have to agree to chat in order to do so. They eventually made a keyboard for it. Yes there was one for SNES. Games included Mario Kart, NBA Jam, MK2... In the beginning you had to pay any phone charges, it was like calling up another person and talking to them. It could get REALLY expensive if you weren't careful. I think there was a $10 a month charge. At one point they made a deal with AT&T for "Nationwide" service which gave you a flat monthly rate for playing long distance (a big help). When you wanted to play, it would first look for someone locally to play, if not it would go long distance (you could set it up in options if you wanted it to look long distance). If it found someone right away, it would say it was connecting and then a VS. screen came up with your avatar and name (with taunt) and the same for your opponent. If it didn't it would wait for someone else and then your phone would ring. The modem would see if it was a actual phone call or if it was another Xband user.

There was very little lag in just about every game that was on the service. They eventually made the software for the PC (this was around the time Quake came out for the PC and the Mplayer service was really big). Xband was there when online gaming really starting to take hold.

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Also, I never had sega channel (but a friend did) so I was wondering, could you play sega channle online, or just download games? Also, would it save the games, or download them again everytime you wanted to play them? How much was it a month?

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Sega Channel was basically a cable modem that let you download games (no online play). They changed the games every month (about 24 games iirc). I think it saved the last game you played so you could just start it up a game. It only took about 3 minutes to download a game and you were free to play it as long as you wanted. They would keep the more popular games from month to month. Again, I'm not sure, but I think it was like 20 bucks a month. It was pretty sick though. It took forever to get mine up and running though, dumb ass guy that came to install it did it completely wrong so I had to wait another week to get it working.

I never played Xband, but I do have one. I won it from Next Generation in some contest. It's still in perfect condition. I wanted to use it, but my parents squashed that from ever happening.

Never had the sega channel either, but this should be a little blast from the past for those who did:

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