30 Years Ago, Nintendo Pioneered Gaming Subscriptions Before Game Pass

For the last two decades, Nintendo has consistently stayed just behind the times with its hardware. The Wii, the Switch, and the upcoming Switch 2 are all less powerful than their contemporaries, as Nintendo put more of an emphasis on how its software will innovate in terms of gameplay ideas and push the envelope creatively.

But Nintendo wasn’t always like this. The GameCube was famously more powerful than the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox. Nintendo was all in on CD technology at the same time as its competition (until it wasn’t) and was doing fun goofy accessories like the E-Reader for the Game Boy Advance and the Game Boy Camera. But none of these experimental and forward-looking technologies showcases Nintendo’s willingness to push the boundaries better than the short lived Satellaview. The literally out-of-this-world technology was leaps and bounds ahead of its time, pioneering a technology that we take for granted some 30 years later.

Nintendo’s Satellaview was the world’s first device to let players download games directly to their consoles well before internet connections were a normalized household appliance. Instead of using broadband, Satellaview relied on a satellite in space to beam the necessary data to consoles. It was the result of Nintendo’s partnership with St. GIGA, the world’s first satellite radio company best known for broadcasting calming nature sounds to subscribers throughout Japan (among other music with narrower audiences).

When St. GIGA’s business struggled to make a profit, Nintendo would step in to save the company from going under. With access to St. GIGA’s revolutionary broadcasting technology, Nintendo’s internal hardware teams sought to incorporate it into its video game buisness. What it came up with was a $150 peripheral for the Super Famicom (SNES here in the U.S.) capable of tuning in to satellite broadcasts beamed from space. In order to access the service, an additional $50 a month would be required, as well as a service fee on top of that (special shout to TetraBitGaming’s excellent look back for these prices). These broadcasts digital magazines long before tablets, access to St. Giga’s nature broadcasts long before ASMR would boom in the 2010s, and of course, playable video games decades before services like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus would let you play a game digitally.

Nintendo was all in on the technology. It would broadcast exclusive games in it’s biggest franchises like Zelda and Kirby. It also let players access updated versions of games like F-Zero which included new features such as exclusive racers and tracks, a precursor to downloadable content. Third parties were all in on the technology as well, as Squaresoft delivered Satellaview-exclusive companion games and apps for its JRPG classic Chrono Trigger. Leveraging the technology, these games could also add on CD-quality audio and live sound, giving subscribers more bang for their buck.

There were shortcomings for the Satellaview though. For one, games could only be played according to a specific schedule. Similar to radio plays and programming, if you wanted to play the Satellaview exclusive 16-bit remake of the original Legend Of Zelda, you needed to tune in at the time specified by Nintendo. While the company wisely incentivized promptness by hosting exclusive events such as limited time competitions and episodic drops for specific games, it was inconveinent compared to a good old fashioned cartridge.

The cost of entry was also a big deal. Buying a $150 attachment for your Super Famicom, plus the subscription and service fee, plus access to your own satellite, made for a significant barrier to entry. It’s a strong reason why

Unfortunely, the Satellaview never made its debut outside of Japan. While it had its fans in Japan (St. GIGA had 100,000 subscribers in 1997 according to Vice, the closest thing the public has to sales numbers), one key thing worked against it. The games market moved fast. When it launched, this high-tech, expensive way to game was already being outclasses not only by the competition, but by Nintendo itself. The N64 was already at retail. Sony’s original PlayStation was not only technically superior to most of the games avaiable on the Satellaview, the games were cheaper thanks to the CD format.

By the late ‘90s, the Satellaview was a forgotten part of Nintendo’s business, paritularly as internet, DVDs and the rapid growth of higher fidelity games continued to grow in popularity. By June 2000, as Dreamcast was normalizing console online gaming and just before the PlayStation 2 would change gaming forever, Nintendo ended support for the Satellaview once and for all. Thankfully, some wise video game preservationists were forward-thinking enough to download most of those Satellaview exclusives for safe-keeping.

Satellaview is a lost part of Nintendo’s deep and fascinating history. While the company is ever present in today’s media and pop culture landscape thanks to its creative breakthroughs in game and hardware design, it was also once a technology pioneer. And while it didn’t have the same success as its industry saving consoles or the game changing handheld devices, its grand satellite experiment laid the foundation for what gaming in the digital age would look like decades later.