[giannicmptr1000]

They were a big step up from the original nintendo cartridges we blew in and wiped with alcohol to keep Tyson winking, but I went the Sega route as Genesis was a better system at the time, but that of course is debatable. Happy people still are interested in the archaic gaming systems.

[kilpikaarna]

Pfft, only 52 simultaneous colors vs 256!

[ericrallen]

I may be a biased Genesis Kid, but SEGA was always ahead of its time.

[Hackbraten]

Sega was also the first console manufacturer to use Blast Processing.

[CableNinja]

Sega was also the pioneer of online gaming, in a sense. SEGA channel was a service provided by your cable company. You got an adapter that went into your SEGA and had a coax that went to your tv box. Every month you get access to 20-40 games, all of which were a range of titles everyone could enjoy. There was no multiplayer, except locally. You could even plug in games you owned without removing the adapter. Also had the bonus of the ability to play the sonic version with the red sonic, by plugging in one of your sonic versions, when the adapter had the red sonic game expander available in its game list.

To me it still holds as one of the coolest technologies (aside from a computer of course) from my childhood. Managed through tv channel sideband data.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Channel

[ButlerianJihad]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASICODE#The_first_standard

https://newslttrs.com/in-the-1980s-we-also-downloaded-softwa...

[dosisking]

PC Engine was also ahead of its time, actual 8-bit games on CD-ROM!

[dfxm12]

Given its age and considering early games on the system, it's amazing how good the street fighter II’ port is.

NEC made some good looking console hardware for the Japanese market too.

[moepstar]

...much to their detriment, sadly.

R.I.P. Dreamcast, R.I.P. 32x, R.I.P. Mega CD, R.I.P. Saturn...

[epcoa]

Not sure how any of these except maybe the Dreamcast (and then not by that much - it was almost literally a contemporary arcade board clone) were examples of “ahead of its time”.

[actionfromafar]

https://dcemulation.org/?title=Bleemcast%21

[pipes]

I bought a DC on launch week, it's one of my favourite consoles of all time. I still own one. But what has bleemcast got to do with what the parent said?

[actionfromafar]

To demonstrate how powerful and far ahead it was.