Sega Genesis TeleModem..... Did this thing ever come out?

[Anthony1]

I'm assuming that this product never came out. I wonder why? It would have been pretty damn sweet. Imagine if the very first John Madden Football game could be played on it. Or the very first NHL Hockey game?


I think if that had happened, Nintendo might have put a modem in the U.S. version of the SNES.

[digitalpress]

It never came out, but the XBand Modem did, there were lots of terrific sports games, including Madden through it. MY game was NBA Live back in those days. I'll never forget the brutal rivalry I had with another regional user named "Brother Sun".

And I'll never forget the sad day when XBand was discontinued. Hey, at least online gaming stuck around! Rivalries are fiercer than ever. I can't wait to get going with XBox Live and school a few of you here :)

[Epicenter]

Wasn't the lag nightmarish? .. if I recall correctly, the XBand was 14,400 BPS ..

[CRV]

Didn't the TeleGenesis modem come out in Japan?

[Ed Oscuro]

This isn't the Baton Teleplay Modem? That thing most certainly didn't come out.

[Gunstarhero]

I don't think lag would be a big problem, Genesis games aren't transmitting alot of data. Nothing a 14.4 kbps modem couldn't handle. The worst part was probably the initial connection process, much like how the Sega Channel required a few minutes to load a game.

[VACRMH]

Just to comment on Xband....

I used to play with it all the freaking time when my cousin had it for SNES. Everything played smooth as hell :)

Boy did I get my ass kicked in Killer Instinct... but I kept practicing :)

[Dire 51]

As far as I know the Telegenesis did make it out in Japan... I recall seeing screenshots of the "Sega Game Net" and a special edition of Phantasy Star II that was only playable online... or were those just prototypes?

[TheRedEye]

The lack of my article in this thread makes me sad.

http://www.lostlevels.org/200310/200310-baton.shtml

In short, no. The Baton Teleplay Modem never came out.

EDIT: ...except you're talking about that other modem. Oh well, nothing wrong with a free plug.

[Blah]

It came out in Japan--one of the games I remember for it was Tel Tel Stadium which was released over here as Tommy Lasorda Baseball. Yeah, the modem came out in Japan real early in the MegaDrive's life cycle. I think it was a 1200 baud modem.

I remember salavating over TelePlay. I never got XBAND because XBAND just allowed you to play existing 2 player games with a modem. But TelePlay was going to have unique multiplayer games and stuff.

That's a great article by the way. But TelePlay wasn't the first console modem as there was one for the Atari 2600 back in the day.

BTW the reason why XBAND had no lag was because it was using a direct dialup connection between you and the other guy on 14.4k. No Internet and TCP/IP overhead. (But you've got to make a long distance call)

[Reivenlocke]

It did come out in the States on the west coast in a very limited release. It's failure was due to the fact the matching server you had to dial into was in Japan. A worker at ELBO told me one time about parents that came into the store ranting and raving about it because their kid ran up a $1000 phone bill playing Cyberball.

[dojosky]

yes indeed it came out in japan i have the game tel tel stadium its a baseball game for the mega drive its compitable with the modem i also have some other MD games thats compitable with that modem whenever i get to the box of my 75+ MD games ill get the info. out to share it with ya all ...

[Reivenlocke]

There was one game for the Telegenesis that looked rather good called Phantasy Star Adventure. You could say that game was the first online RPG.