Forgotten Super Nintendo feature resurrected by modders

The Satellaview was a Japanese peripheral that let fans play exclusive games on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Now some Nintendo fans have recreated it.

Most people think that the ability to download games and new content is a recent phenomenon. However, way back in 1995, Nintendo created a peripheral for the Super Famicom allowing players to download games, magazines, and other media via a satellite service.

Now, some dedicated modders and Nintendo fans have completely recreated the Satellaview service. The original was reserved only for Japanese users, but Satellaview Plus will let anyone connect to a server and experience some long-lost classic games.

Satellaview had access to some exclusive games, some of them from well-known franchises such as Legend of Zelda, F-Zero, Fire Emblem, and Kirby.

When the original service was live, users could access these games by downloading them to a special cartridge. These downloads were on a specific schedule, so if you missed a broadcast, you missed the content.

When the Satellaview service was closed down in 2000, these broadcast games were thought to be lost. The efforts of fans and modders have brought many of these forgotten games back to life.

In addition, the Satellaview Plus service will let fans experience these games the same way that Japanese players did back in the 90s. They even come complete with specific ‘broadcast times’ when the server will be active.

The service was shown off by YouTuber Video Game Esoterica, who went into detail about how Satellaview Plus works.

Currently, Satellaview Plus is available to emulation users, with broadcasts reportedly planned to begin on August 1st. However, the schedule currently has no broadcasts listed.

Those interested in trying it out will need to visit the Satellaview Plus Github page. The team behind the project is planning on having it run on real Super Famicom hardware in the future.

More ambitious plans involve creating an entire MiSTer FPGA core, but that will require significantly more work to come to fruition.