Sega Sells Classic Genesis ROMs On Japanese Site

Posted by simoniker on Friday November 14, 2003 @12:59PM from the sega-sells-sea-shells dept.

Thanks to 1UP for its story revealing that Sega is opening a Japanese ROM download service for classic Genesis games, meaning that "players can download and play an array of 16-bit games on their PCs" completely legally. According to the piece, "The service charges a monthly fee of 1,000 yen (about $9) for unlimited downloads. 30 games will be available at launch, with about 10 new games joining them each month." Launch titles include Gunstar Heroes, Ecco the Dolphin, Phantasy Star II, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and "Sega plans to eventually build a library of more than 100 games, as well as community features where retro-gaming enthusiasts can meet and chat", but there's no news on a similar service in the West, and it's a little unclear whether you can keep the games after stopping monthly payments.

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Interesting by neostorm · 2003-11-14 14:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

But if there is only a library of 100 ROMs total (eventually), what's to keep subscribed when they've downloaded them all? From my experience, it doesn't take a long time to download 100 16-bit ROMs, and "community features" featuring chats and forums aren't really worth $10 a month are they? That's what we have GameFAQs.com for.