They had it in Japan as well?! I doubt it was made by the same US electronics company as the US one (looks like General Instruments?), so it's probably not the same inside. Does the US Sega Channel dealy have that menu button too? Also, did the Japanese one use cable or satellite TV?
There was also a 3rd version, if I remember. It was a alternate to the US version that was in the shape of the 32X (Must have been a earlier model, because I don't even remember the long version) Edit: Apperantly, there were different colored versions of the bottom, as well. Here is a auction on ebay. Note the blue bottom in the first picture, and the green in the Ebay auction.
They're different probably depending on which cable provider you're using. The General Instruments one is what was in my area. As for compatibility, likely the US and J Sega Channels are pretty much the same thing. I've never seen screenshots of the Japanese service though, no one has :\
The green and blue bits are just risers for using the Sega Channel in either a MD1 or MD2. The MD2 has a more shallow slot/body, so you need that blue or green bit to make the huge cart stable. You would remove it for use on a MD1.
That would explain a few things. With my version, it would show the man on the Sega Channel cart going back and forth in the loading screen, and a chocolate covered ! symbol if someone couldn't connect with a error tag. The layout was also wierd, with backrounds matching the time of year, some backround music, and so on. Don't remember how they did the menus, though. The games were a wide variety: Sonic games, Earthworm Jim, kiddie games (Barny and Beirstein bears), Star Trek games, and so on.
