In researching the Bandai Pippen@world, I found this little gem:
Surf Along with Sonic
While Sony's Playstation and the new Nintendo64 battle for set-top supremacy, Sega has quietly become the first game company to offer Internet access. A $200 Net Link plugged into a $200 Saturn yields what Sega calls "the $400 solution."
This deck-of-cards-size 28.8 modem, which plugs into the Saturn cartridge slot, brings affordable Web surfing, chat and email capabilities to the nearly one million Saturn users. And while the graphics look dreadful and the text can be difficult to read, it is easy and cheap.
There's virtually no setup: Just drop the cartridge into the slot, plug in a phone, and you're surfing away. You can use the standard game controller or plug in your own PC keyboard (with a $24.95 adapter). Though you can't use America Online, you can choose any Internet Service Provider, so if you've already got an ISP, you can piggyback onto that account.
Naturally, because it's Sega, one of the big ideas is to get you to play games--in this case, networked games that allow you to compete with others down the street or across the country. Seattle coffee shops are bustling with developers adapting their games to this new format. (Neither Sony nor Nintendo have announced Internet strategies.)
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The $400 solution? And while graphics are dreadful and the text is hard to read...lol. Damn. AND You had to use your own ISP before anyone knew what an ISP was? Sounds like a success waiting to happen. I see big things happening with them and their console development over the next...oh wait what?
And finally...what a fall from grace, The Sega Pico:
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