Man, Sega Channel was wild—basically Netflix for Genesis games before anyone even thought of streaming. You plugged this weird adapter into your console, hooked it up to cable, and suddenly had a rotating lineup of games to play. No cartridges, no trips to the rental store, just a menu full of stuff like Streets of Rage 2 or Sonic Spinball popping up like magic.

Some were demos, some were full games, and yeah, a lot were basically ads for upcoming releases. But as a kid, it felt like having an arcade in your living room. The selection changed every month, so you’d boot it up and immediately start scrolling to see what was new. Half the fun was discovering some weird title you’d never heard of before.

It’s funny looking back—this thing was way ahead of its time, even if the tech was janky by today’s standards. If you had it, you definitely bragged to your friends about it.