A Brief History of Downloadable Console Games

Ant sends in a story at CNet about the evolution of downloadable console games, ranging from Intellivision's PlayCable in 1981 to the modern systems we see today. Quoting: "Intellivision was the first home console to let users download games via a coaxial cable line. Subscribers rented a special cartridge that hooked up to local cable and would be able to download single games that could be played until users decided to download new titles. The service's downfall was a result of innovations to Mattel's Intellivision game system, which began using cartridges with ever-increasing amounts of memory. The PlayCable service could no longer keep up, since the special cartridge could hold only a fourth of the total space that newer games required."

Comments

SEGA Channel

[grumling]

I remember the Sega Channel. I got to test it out on our cable system prior to launch. ...I spent way too much time playing Earthworm Jim, but at least I was on the clock!

Great idea, but they screwed up by not making a version for the SEGA Saturn (or whatever the next generation was), which was already in the pipeline and may have even been released that year. That's fairly typical of the time though, since everything was completely proprietary.