Satellaview
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The Satellaview was a peripheral for the Super Famicom that enabled the downloading of magazines, games and other media by way of satellite broadcasting services provided by Japanese satellite radio company St. GIGA. The peripheral, co-developed by Nintendo Research & Development 2 and St. GIGA, was released on April 24, 1995.[1] Broadcasting services for the Satellaview were discontinued on June 30, 2000.[2]
Features
In order to use the peripheral, the user was required to have a subscription to St. GIGA's services as well as a BS tuner and satellite dish. Users were able to download and play games, read digital magazines, and listen to dedicated radio programs. Broadcasting services for the system lasted until June 30, 2000, when St. GIGA officially discontinued the system and its services. A large catalog of games previously released in cartridge format, as well as a few new games, was made available for download through the service. A deluxe package came with a rewritable 8-megabit memory card that plugged into a slot on the top of the boot cartridge. Without this cartridge, the BS-X cartridge saved downloaded content to its 512 KB of built-in memory.
A feature called SoundLink allowed the use of streaming music or voice clips, most famously used in Ancient Stone Tablets, while playing a game.