XBAND (stylized as XBⱯND) was one of the first competitive online console gaming networks and was available for the Genesis and

Super NES The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in ...

. It was produced by Catapult Entertainment in

Cupertino, California Cupertino ( ) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 57,82 ...

. It is the only modem released in America to have been officially licensed by Nintendo. It debuted in various areas of the United States in late 1994 and 1995.

History

The Genesis version of the XBAND was released in November 1994, with the Super NES version following in June 1995, and the Super Famicom version in April 1996. The Genesis version also works with the Genesis Nomad. In Brazil the Mega Drive service was released as the Mega Net 2, named after the

Sega Meganet Sega Meganet, also known as the Net Work System, was an online service for the Mega Drive in Japan and later Brazil. Utilizing dial-up Internet access, Meganet was Sega's first online multiplayer gaming service, and functioned on a pay to play ...

. In 1995, Catapult Entertainment signed a deal with General Instrument, producers of the

Sega Channel The Sega Channel is a discontinued online game service developed by Sega for the Sega Genesis video game console, serving as a content delivery system. Launched on December 14, 1994, the Sega Channel was provided to the public by TCI and Time W ...

, which stipulated that the XBAND modem would henceforth be built into new Sega Channel adapters, and that the top 5 to 10 games offered by Sega Channel each month would be playable over XBAND. Initially, Catapult Entertainment had a limited staff and virtually no advertising. By January 1997, XBAND network playability had reached practically every metropolitan area and several rural areas in the U.S. The actual XBAND modems were carried by a few software and video rental chains across the United States. Internationally, the XBAND had some limited growth in the Japanese market, and Catapult was working on PC and Sega Saturn support, though it merged with

Mpath Interactive Mplayer, referred to as Mplayer.com by 1998, was a free online PC gaming service and community that operated from late 1996 until early 2001. The service at its peak was host to a community of more than 20 million visitors each month and offere ...

. The focus shifted to the online PC gaming service Mplayer.com which was taken offline and integrated into

GameSpy Arcade GameSpy Arcade was a shareware multiplayer game server browsing utility. GameSpy Arcade allowed players to view and connect to available multiplayer games, and chat with other users of the service. It was initially released by GameSpy Industries, ...

in 2001, after being acquired by GameSpy on December 2000.

Service

The concept of playing online was fairly new at the time. Arcades were still quite popular, and online gaming was not yet a household idea. The XBAND modem was widely available at Blockbuster Video for , with additional charges based on usage. Two pricing plans were available. One had a monthly fee of $4.95 and allowed the user to connect to the service up to 50 times a month with each additional connection costing 15 cents. The other had a monthly fee of $9.95 with unlimited connections. Activities that consumed a player's monthly allowance of connections included dialing into the XBAND service for matchmaking, downloading mail (called "XMAIL"), and downloading the daily edition of the two XBAND newsletters, one containing generic news and the other containing platform-specific information such as leaderboards and contest announcements. Players were assessed a fee of $3.95/hour for connecting to opponents outside their local calling area; player-to-player connections inside their local calling area were free. The modem features built-in storage for up to four user codenames. It stores user friend lists, which can contain the codenames of up to ten of the user's friends; the users' XMAIL boxes, storing up to ten incoming and ten outgoing messages for each user; the users' rankings, win–loss records, and accumulated scores; a short profile section; and the user's avatar (chosen from 40 preset avatars). Text entry is done either through an on-screen keyboard or an optional XBAND keyboard add-on ($29.95 MSRP) released later in the network's lifespan. The client-side system worked by manipulating the game's memory in a way similar to

Game Genie Game Genie is a line of video game cheat cartridges originally designed by Codemasters, sold by Camerica and Galoob. The first device in the series was released in 1990 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, with subsequent devices released for t ...

and third-party computer game modifications such as Multi Theft Auto. The XBand operating system was designed to ensure that connections are not lost due to phone activity; in the case of

call waiting Call waiting is a telephone service where a subscriber can accept a second incoming telephone call by placing an in-progress call on hold—and may also switch between calls. With some providers it can be combined with additional features such a ...

, the system would alert the user to the call and allow the game to be resumed. XBAND had an official website to check other players' statistics, along with other information and updates that were not viewable on consoles. At its height, XBAND had 15,000 subscribers.

Gaming

A 1995 article in '' Next Generation'' stated that the XBAND modem's "ultra-low latency is the key to its successful handling of realtime videogaming". The modem's data transfer rate is 2,400 bits per second, which, though low compared to PC modems of the time, was sufficient to handle the simple one-on-one games for XBAND. When connecting to play, unless specifying a particular user from the friend list, players were matched with a random player elsewhere in the country (or the player's local area code depending on preference) who was also connecting to play the same game. The server would attempt to match players of like skill levels, using the

Elo rating system The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American physics professor. The Elo system was invented as an improved c ...

. When the network matched two players up, the newly-connected player's XBAND modem would disconnect from the server and dial the other player, whose own XBAND modem would answer. At that point, the players saw the XBAND logo slide together, followed by the matchup screen, which displayed each player's codenames, avatars, locations, and a pre-typed "taunt". In December 1995, XBAND launched its first national tournament. This was the first modem to modem tournament ever to be held over a console. The grand prize winner received a special Genghis Khan icon for their XBAND profile and a $200 cash prize from Catapult. Peter Kappes aka "SphiNX" of Orlando, Florida became the first person in history to win a modem to modem national tournament over a console.

Icon hacking

During the last few months of service, several users discovered a way to use a

to hack the icons of XBAND players. This enabled players to use icons that were otherwise restricted, such as unreleased icons or icons reserved for matches between XBAND team members. Icon hacking resulted in complaints from other users. Rumors about XBAND icon hackers often claimed they were part of elite hacking organizations or members of Catapult Entertainment. Eventually, the method used by the hackers was leaked and inevitably spread throughout the community.

Demise

By March 16, 1997, people could only play within their local area code. On April 30, 1997, the entire network was discontinued, with Mpath citing a lack of new games for the Genesis and Super NES. XBAND had announced in its previous monthly newsletter that it was shutting down. According to '' Next Generation'', XBAND "never turned a significant profit". During XBAND's existence, only a handful of advertisements were ever made, and only one game, '' Weaponlord'', has the XBAND logo on its box. XBAND stated in its newsletter that players were their best form of advertising, and offered the "XBAND 6 pack", where members could order six modems at a discounted rate and receive a month of free gaming in exchange for signing up a certain number of people to the service. Heavy contributors to XBAND's demise were the lack of support from game developers and limited internal resources. With the exception of ''Weaponlord'', Catapult had to individually

reverse engineer Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...

each game's code, then develop a hack to intercept two-player activity so the game could be shared over a low-latency (fast response time), 2,400-bps modem connection. Catapult's second generation attempts were blocked by

Conexant Conexant Systems, Inc. was an American-based software developer and fabless semiconductor company that developed technology for voice and audio processing, imaging and modems. The company began as a division of Rockwell International, before ...

due to the increasing use of the Internet, an effect from the shift to the

Information Age The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during ...

. The XBAND for Sega Saturn was released in Japan on July 27, 1996. Although Catapult's president Adam Grosser stated that it was "Launched on April 1, 1996", it turned out to be the Super Famicom versions. Unlike the SNES/Super Famicom and Genesis versions of XBAND, it did not require an XBAND-specific modem, instead utilizing Sega's own Sega NetLink device (which included a 14,400 bps modem in Japan and a 28,800 bps modem in North America). Neither the Saturn XBAND nor an expansion into the PC market succeeded, because developers frequently opted to include their own network linking rather than deal with Catapult's subscription-based service.

Service issues

A major issue for the XBAND service was free long-distance phone calls. It was discovered that a user could record the tones sent from an XBAND modem and then receive the long-distance service number, the authentication code, and phone number of the player you were connecting to. This information allowed anyone to access long-distance phone calls that were charged to Catapult.

Paging In computer operating systems, memory paging is a memory management scheme by which a computer stores and retrieves data from secondary storage for use in main memory. In this scheme, the operating system retrieves data from secondary storage ...

company SkyTel faced similar problems from both XBAND users and their own customers. XBAND users performed brute-force attacks against SkyTel's mobile paging system in order to discover

voicemail A voicemail system (also known as voice message or voice bank) is a computer-based system that allows users and subscribers to exchange personal voice messages; to select and deliver voice information; and to process transactions relating to ind ...

boxes using the same number as the login and password, using these to extend their communication with each other. Most messages consisted simply of shout-outs with music playing in the background. A common complaint was that if a player was losing a match, they could simply pull their phone cord out or reset their system. This tactic, known as "cord-pulling" among XBAND users, prevented the XBAND service from crediting either player with the win or loss. In response to complaints, the company developed a program which would detect such forced disconnections and assign a loss to the perpetrator and a win to the victim. However, this led to a flood of calls from users claiming that their reset button had been pushed by accident and demanding that the loss be erased from their record; facing unsustainable customer service costs, Catapult changed the program so that while victims of cord-pulling were awarded a win, perpetrators were no longer penalized in any way.

Publishing statistics

Though lacking market success, the XBAND team did manage some publicity gains when they joined forces with a number of gaming magazines, starting on the web with Game Zero magazine and later in Tips & Tricks Magazine. Daily stats were accessible via XBAND News on the modem, although they were not visible to the general public. Publishing stats added a "cool" factor to brag about in the early forefront of online gaming. The top-ranked gamers of the previous month were published starting in January 1996 in Game Zero and, starting in early 1996, in ''Tips & Tricks'' magazine.

Supported games

The following games have been analyzed, and online compatibility provided, by XBAND. A hidden maze game can be unlocked in the SNES version by inserting a '' The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past'' cartridge.