LudicrousSpeed said:
Nah, this article is early on, when the DC first started getting online games in Japan I assume. Outside of ChuChu, US got online games around a year after launch. And there was no charge for around a year and a half or so, outside of ISP charges. Then Sega started charging a monthly fee to access their titles online. You could still play third party titles with just the ISP, like Quake and Unreal Tournament. But I was big into NFL2k2 and it required a $10 a month payment to play online. |
Ah, didn't know that. Was that per game or all Sega titles? Games like Ultima Online and Everquest also had a monthly fee already.
Interesting, if Wikepedia is correct it was double that when it launched in the US
As a replacement for Sega's original PC-only online gaming service, Heat.net,[49] SegaNet was initially quite popular when it launched on September 7, 2000.[50] Just over a month after launch, by October 27, 2000, SegaNet had 1.55 million Dreamcast consoles registered online, including 750,000 in Japan, 400,000 in North America, and 400,000 in Europe.[51] This was somewhat surprising given that Sega initially set a monthly subscription fee of USD$21.95, relatively expensive compared to other Internet service providers (ISPs) of the time. However, it was unavailable outside of the contiguous United States; support for Canada, Alaska, and Hawaii was planned, but never realized.[39][40][52] Unlike a standard ISP, game servers were connected directly into SegaNet's internal network, providing very low connection latency between the consoles and servers along with standard Internet access via the included PlanetWeb browser.[8][53]
It was reduced later and seemed to have been different by country. The UK never got a monthly fee according to Wikepedia
