Me, and most of the fellas in my family were hardcore dedicated Sega heads to the very end. Uncles had Master Systems and beyond. I had Genesis and beyond. Loved all of Sega's products, even when they wasn't on top. Saturn peripherals was expensive as shyt. My Uncle bought it for us but I remember it being somewhere around 80-100 dollars if I remember correctly. It was a full blown dial up modem in a box. There were no "lobbies" or big scenes for the Saturn online community at the time. The Netlink was just allowed up to a whopping 2 people to connect and compete directly with each other. You'd call up someone on their phone, ask if they wanna play, if they say yes you hit the online mode on your game and then you'd submit the person's phone number, dial, and connect with each other directly. That was it. I remember it being very reliable, no lag, and technically two people with Sega Saturn's, Netlink modems, and phone land lines can still use it to this day if I'm not mistaken.
The funny part is that some games, like Duke Nukem 3D, threw in the online mode but forgot to code the game to disable cheat codes during online multiplayer. So my knucklehead cousins use to turn on invincibility and then prank my confused Uncle online.
Also when you did chat with each other in a post-game "lobby" you can actually see each other type and erase messages as you submitted, rather than hiding that until the message is sent, as chat rooms would eventually do.
The Netlink even had a full blown functional HTML web browser (something that even Xbox, Playstation and todays brands wouldn't have for ages) and an email client. You sure couldn't get that on Playstation. Sure couldn't get it on Nintendo 64. It was awesome for it's time! Sega does NOT get the credit they deserve.
. Not Sega as a entire crew. Saturn was selling like hotcakes outside of the States, Dreamcast is questionable due to the fact that PS2 came and crush the buildings.
