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Klonoa the Dream Traveler

Super Famicom Satellaview is now 20 years old

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For people who don't know what a Satellaview is, The Satellaview was a Japan-Only add-on for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System released in 1995. It was created in a partnership between Nintendo and St.GIGA, which at the time being a popular Satellite radio company. Similar to Sega's Sega Channel service, its most notable feature was the ability to download games, news magazines and articles from St.GIGA's servers. Other features were to play pop music, advertise, or allow people to listen to radio programs while playing games - for certain special games, particularly the games advertised on soundlink, which were many Mario games. The Satellaview system program ended on June 30, 2000. It continued receiving new games up until March 1999. It is unknown why the Satellaview never went international. The Satellaview was obviously planned in North America as the evidence is the unused expansion port at the bottom of the NTSC version of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Also, since the Satellaview program ended, the games that were available on there is now unplayable. But luckily thanks to hackers, the games are now playable on a emulator. (Thanks internet!) The games on the Satellaview were unique or simply ports of SNES games. Here's a list of the games were available on the Satellaview:

 

 
Albert Odyssey (Super Famicom game)
 
Arkanoid
 
BS Fire Emblem: Archanea Senki
 
BS Super Mario USA Power Challenge
 
BS Tantei Club: Yuki ni Kieta Kako
 
Dr. Mario
 
Dragon Quest
 
DynamiTracer
 
Earth Defense Force
 
F-Zero
 
Harvest Moon
 
Ihatovo Monogatari
 
Itoi Shigesato no Bass Tsuri No. 1
 
BS The Legend of Zelda (A remake of the first Zelda game. It featured "Live Voice", where a "narrator" would guide and give helpful hints and advice to the players through the game.)
 
BS The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets (A actually sequel to the famed Link to the past. It featured actual voice acting and a different protagonist.)
 
Lemmings
 
Radical Dreamers
 
RPG Maker
 
SameGame
 
Shockman
 
Spriggan Powered
 
Super Mario Bros. 2
 
Super Ninja Boy
 
Sutte Hakkun
 
True Golf Classics: Waialae Country Club
 
Wario's Woods
 
Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom
 
Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge
 
But why did it ended so soon? Because in 1999, the Satellaview service was controlled by both St. GIGA and Nintendo. After 1999 St. GIGA was the sole controller of the service, as Nintendo broke its partnership with the radio station due to a dispute. However, the service was only turned off in 2000. 
Anyway.....the Satellaview is now 20 years old. Have you ever played it?

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this kinda serves as a grim reminder of what online content of the future can bring

sure, we can emulate old SNES games... not so much PS360 games, or worse, XB1, PS4 and Wii U games.

servers inevitably go down, and each time there's a chance a game will be lost to history forever

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