Hello All! I just purchased a Sealed XBAND for the Genesis. The guy the whole time just sat and joked, "Enjoy your $20 paperweight." He acted like I was a complete fool, and had no idea what I was even buying. But I dunno... something in my head sparked when I saw a factory sealed XBAND for only $20... So what do you guys think of this? Was it really a waste of money? :dance: :crying: :nod:
Hahahaha, yeah I was thinking the same thing. How could I pass it up?! :dance: And the N-Gage? :lol: The System sealed is maybe worth a good $5. ;-)
I think the price was about right. New XBANDs just aren't interesting though because they don't have anything in their memory yet (and never will).
What do you mean? Blank because they will never be connected to the XBAND network and have anything written onto them? I am not so sure how XBAND works to be all honest. :redface: :nod: :thumbsup:
Yup, pretty much. I don't think the XBand ever had games saved on it, just mail, info etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBAND Meganet and Sega Channel were better anyway lol. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Meganet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Channel
They don't have games on them but they do have downloaded game patches stored in them, which were necessary to use the device, and will be necessary in the future if someone ever makes a XBAND-internet bridge.
I have modems for almost every console that had an online service and I din't care a shit about all those guys looking at me when I bought one 20$ for a piece of dead technology are not that bad if you consider that it is a nice collectible and, even more than that, new.
Yeah, I mean I know what the XBAND is for and everything, and obviously no games were stored on the cartridge itself. :110: But game patches were? I heard somewhere that the company that made XBAND would have to reverse engineer the games so that they would work with the XBAND. So are these patches what make the "online" gameplay possible then you say? None are pre-stored? Hahaha, yeah, I didnt care much either. Just thought it was funny. :lol: :thumbsup:
To me, the XBand has historical value but no play value. Even the snobbiest of game collectors tends to assign value based in part on the potential for continued use and play out of any software or hardware. In that respect, the XBand would be less valuable than a Dreamcast modem or a Saturn Netlink, both of which could theoretically still be used today on existing systems. Unless somebody has created a homebrew XBand service that accepts calls and transmits game images, there's no such usage potential in an XBand.
Yea it's possible to dump the patches (only with a custom dumping algorithm), but they're retained in battery backed RAM so it won't be possible forever. Definitely the truth, but that historical value is why some people think it needs to be preserved. I'm not so sure I'm one of them, but Sega Channel on the other hand...
There's a guy online who's been working hard to collect ROM dumps from Xbands in order to see if he could replicate the service online. I sent my used Xband to him a few years ago, and he was nice enough to send me an emulator copy along with the modem itself. I'm doing my best to keep the whole historical aspect of Xband alive ad well. I don't want to seem like a spammer by posting direct links, but search for Xband411 on YouTube and you'll see actual in-game footage as well as the news, player lists, x-mail, etc.
Well I use to write game patches for the XBAND Modem, and they were downloaded via the server into the SRAM on the modem. We could hold only one patch at a time in SRAM. So when you connected up with the service, we would checksum the ROM cartridge plugged into the modem and then check if that against what was on our servers and if it was the patch in SRAM already. If not, it would download the new patch. --Selgus
It would be awesome to see an xband service revival. I always wanted one of those things when I was young.
I wish there was a way to get this service running again, back in the day when the snes was still being sold commercially I had never even heard about this, Woulda loved to play a guy on mario kart.. ;[
Battle Mode was the best on Xband. Racing was always just kind of "eh". I have two videos up of some Super Mario Kart battles from Xband if you care to see them: http://www.youtube.com/user/Xband411
What was the full list of X-Band supported games anyway? I have seen a few lists but they were very short. I hear Mortal Kombat 2 and 3 were supported, oddly SF2 Turbo was not. I heard a claim that Doom was supported, is that true?
