Connection lost: The Cinderella story of online multiplayer

Over the past two decades, we’ve seen plenty of bizarre hacks, strange devices, and oddball services that enable online multiplayer gaming. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, there were plenty of attempts to get online multiplayer services up and running on consoles, but nothing gained substantial traction in the United States until the Xbox 360 hit shelves in 2005.
Today it’s practically a mandatory feature for any AAA game, so let’s take a moment to admire how far we’ve come.

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XBAND for SNES and Genesis

Did you know that Super Nintendo games could be played online in the mid-1990s? While it’s easy to assume online multiplayer started with Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, the fact is that classic games like Mario Kart and Mortal Kombat were actually playable over a dial-up modem for roughly ten dollars a month.
In 1994, Catapult Entertainment released this console add-on for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and took a huge step forward in online multiplayer gaming. With the XBAND sitting between the console and the game cartridge, gamers could connect to other players over a dial-up modem.
Unfortunately, most games didn’t natively support this peripheral. To make games like Super Street Fighter II playable online, the XBAND had to alter the game’s memory addressing — similar to the way a Game Genie and GameShark worked. Due to the lack of official support — and the technical limitations of the 2400bps modem — the platform never took off. After only a few years on the market, the service was shut down for good in 1997.

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Sega MegaNet

As we’ve mentioned previously, Sega’s Japan-only MegaNet service offered a number of downloadable games for the Mega Drive all the way back in 1990. The 1200bps modem was laggy, the games on this service remained extraordinarily simple, and the multiplayer options were kept sparse on purpose. Only two games on the service were even capable of online multiplayer, and Sega soon abandoned the platform completely in favor of the cable-based Sega Channel in 1993.

SegaNet

With the advent of the Saturn in 1994, Sega produced the 28.8kbps NetLink modem adaptor. This device enabled gamers to play with each other directly over the phone line, but Sega’s own centralized service, called “SegaNet,” was available exclusively in Japan. Due to the lackluster worldwide sales of the Saturn, it’s no surprise that it wasn’t long lived.
Once the Dreamcast was released with its built-in 56kbps modem in 1998, the SegaNet service was converted to support the worldwide online offerings on Sega’s last console. This iteration didn’t last long either, I’m afraid. By mid-2001, Sega had shut down its hardware devision completely.
While Sega simply wasn’t able to gain critical mass — especially outside of Japan — the Tokyo-based company always stayed on the cutting edge. Many of the features we take for granted on modern consoles can trace their lineage directly to Sega’s innovations, and we should pay homage to the company that Sonic built. Maybe you never played Phantasy Star Online or ChuChu Rocket, but those titles paved the way forward.

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Randnet

Nintendo has had a troubled history with online connectivity. Sure, it tinkered with products like the Famicom Modem and the Satellaview, but it never made a serious attempt to serve the online market until the 64DD was released in 1999. The Randnet service, exclusive to Japan, offered plenty of online features, but the software selection was extremely limited. The Mario Artist series did offer users the ability to share creations, but the severe lack of titles and poor market adoption caused Randnet to close up shop after only two years

LAN Tunneling

While the gaming companies were still figuring out how to deliver a compelling multiplayer experience, the enthusiast community took it upon itself to develop its own multiplayer network out of duct tape and elbow grease. Games like Halo: Combat Evolved and Mario Kart: Double Dash didn’t inherently support online multiplayer, but they did offer multiplayer over Local Area Networks.
Through clever use of tunneling software, players could use services like Warp Pipe and XLink Kai to play multiplayer matches around the world. Eventually, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo took the hint, and moved into the realm of modern multiplayer gaming.

Xbox Live

In 2002, a full year after the original Xbox hit store shelves, Microsoft launched Xbox Live. People could buy DLC and even small arcade games on the storefront, but the core of Xbox Live has always been the multiplayer matchmaking, a unified friends list, and built-in voice chat. It blew Sony and Nintendo out of the water when it was released, and Xbox Live remains the premiere online multiplayer platform.
The first Xbox didn’t last long on the market, and the Xbox 360 made its way to the public in 2005. Microsoft doubled-down on the Xbox Live service, and that decision turned out to be extremely fruitful for the Redmond-based company. Now with the Xbox One, online gaming is more important than ever. Games are increasingly multiplayer-focused, and big titles like Titanfall will absolutely make or break this new platform.

PlayStation Network

During the PS2 era, Sony was caught with its pants down by Xbox Live. There was a network adapter available for the PS2, and a numerous titles such as Champions of Norrath and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 had support for online multiplayer, but it paled in comparison to Microsoft’s service.
Alongside the launch of the PS3, Sony finally implemented the PlayStation Network in 2006. PSN sports a friends list and basic messaging, but Sony largely kept its hands off of matchmaking until recently. The service remained free throughout the PS3′s lifespan, and that was largely its appeal. Unfortunately, the laissez-faire attitude that Sony maintained meant that the multiplayer experience never quite lived up to the quality of Xbox Live.
Last year, the PS4 was released to much fanfare, and with it came the requirement of PlayStation Plus for multiplayer games. Sony finally implemented cross-game voice-chat and matchmaking in its service, so third-party developers will end up needing significantly less infrastructure for new games. Xbox Live and PSN are now largely on par in terms of features and cost, and that means a more consistent online multiplayer experience across the board. It’s still not perfect, but we’re in a better situation than we were in the last generation.

Nintendo Network

Nintendo continues to lag behind the rest of the industry with terms of online multiplayer. While there is no cost associated with playing online games, the experience is less than appealing. With the Wii and DS systems, Nintendo required users to enter long alphanumeric strings called “friend codes” in order to play online with each other. Thankfully, Nintendo is transitioning away from such an absurd system in favor of a username system with the Wii U and 3DS. Meanwhile, popular games like Batman: Arkham Origins are leaving out multiplayer completely on the Wii U. Nintendo has always seemed a bit baffled by the idea of online multiplayer games, and we still have yet to see a truly compelling online experience come from the house of Mario.

Reconnect

Online multiplayer started out as something of a novelty on consoles, but it’s grown to be so much more than that. In the span of just a few years, online console multiplayer went from being the butt of jokes to an industry in and of itself. The Call of Duties and Battlefields of the world are largely focused on the online multiplayer experience, and they continue to sell millions of copies on consoles every year. The sales charts don’t lie — online console multiplayer is one of the technology world’s greatest Cinderella stories.