Revisit Sega's groundbreaking Sega Channel service with these newly preserved videos

If you've been following the site for a while, you know that we're beyond obsessed with Sega Channel – Sega's long-defunct cable-based video game service for the Mega Drive, which was active in the mid to late '90s.

So, understandably, we always keep an eye on news related to the ahead-of-its-time service and any ongoing preservation efforts underway to attempt to document it in modern times.

For example, last month we reported that the Video Game History Foundation had managed to recover the ROM of the highly sought-after Sega Channel exclusive Garfield Caught in the Act: The Lost Levels and that the game was shown at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2024. And it seems we'll have even more newly salvaged Sega Channel material to enjoy this month, with @GhostCorpsGen and @BillytimeG releasing 15 incredible VHS rips for a closer look at the service in its heyday.

These videos show the changing look of the Sega Channel in 1997 and 1998, with the first upload containing footage from the weekly video game review show Twitch (which aired between 1995 and 1997) as well as a number of b-rolls from 1994's Game Freaks Mega Drive titles Pulseman.

If you're unfamiliar with the story behind Pulseman, it was essentially a game that was only distributed in North America through the Sega Channel at the time, although it was originally released on cartridge in Japan. The Sega Channel version's ROM was never restored or posted online, and footage of it is fairly rare these days, leading some to mistakenly believe that this North American version received a localization treatment before its Western release. But interestingly, as these videos seem to confirm, this doesn't seem to be the case, as the game only retains the Japanese subtitles and not the localized text.

That wasn't the only thing that caught our attention, as the other VHS uploads offered a fascinating look at some of the player guides and video game descriptions provided as part of the service, as well as an interestingly named “Sonic Mania” section. is dedicated to downloading a range of Sonic titles (including Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic & KnucklesAnd Sonic Spin Ball). As you will undoubtedly know, Sonic Mania It later became the name of a 2017 Sonic game directed by members of the Sonic fangame community, including Christian Whitehead.

You can view the full list of videos on the BillyTime!Games YouTube channel.