The SEGAGuys get NetLinks!

The SEGA Saturn is enjoying an incredible retro renaissance right now.

From hardware mods that increase longevity and ODEs that lower the barrier of entry, to the incredible fan translations and a thriving homebrew community, the Saturn has it all.

In the past week, Dan and I took delivery of our NetLink modems, (Editor’s note: They’re technically the Japanese version of the modem, the Xband) and a massive thank you to Dave and the SHIRO! crew for giving us the opportunity to purchase these kits.

The initial setup takes an hour or so and consists of forwarding some ports on your router and ensuring the modem is seated properly in the Saturn (we all know how finicky those cartridge slots can be), but once you’re connected it really is a “Set it and leave it” kind of deal.

My first ever Saturn online game was against SaturnDave on SEGA Rally, and while there was an element of input delay and a little slowdown, the experience of playing another Saturn owner online in 2024 was mindblowing. Think about this for a second: Dave is in San Diego, I’m in Glasgow, Scotland, and we’re racing against one another on a console that was discontinued in 1998.

The next goal was to play Dan (The Mega Driver) online, and with us both being in the UK, we had high hopes that Joe’s insanely impressive tunnel script would see us experience relatively lag-free gameplay — and it didn’t disappoint.

Late on Wednesday evening, we enjoyed almost two hours of NetLink gameplay across five games: SEGA Rally, Virtua Fighter Remix, Daytona USA CE, Virtual On, and SEGA Worldwide Soccer 98.

Frame rate-wise, every game hit the mark, they ran as close to their offline counterparts as you could hope given the infrastructure and wizardry at work. SEGA Rally still had some input delay, but it wasn’t prohibitive. If you know the tracks, and by this point it’s safe to assume everyone reading this does, then you can anticipate what’s ahead with ease and adjust.

SEGA Worldwide Soccer 98 and Virtual On were the most impressive of the five, they were totally indistinguishable from their offline versions, with responsive controls and a flawless frame rate. It’s a shame really, because I can’t blame the drubbing Dan gave me at Worldwide Soccer 98 on any lag!

Likewise, Virtua Fighter Remix was great, with a little bit of collision detection going awry, but again, nothing game breaking. I’d say the controller input was midway between SEGA Rally and Virtual On in terms of delay.

Likewise, Daytona USA CE was responsive enough in terms of controls, but it felt like the game had been slowed down slightly. Now whether that was by design or just the connection, I’m not sure, but the frame rate felt smooth enough, it just didn’t feel like the foot was to the floor.

All in all, I can’t recommend taking your Saturn online enough. Cynics may say we’d have loved it regardless because we have an affinity for the Saturn, but everyone has a level of tolerance with lag and delay, and if the gameplay wasn’t good enough, we wouldn’t be afraid to say so.

Dan and I experienced an insanely low ping rate on both ends, sitting between 9 and 14 at most points, rising into the early 20s. As we were dialing one another, the ping would leap up into the 50s, but quickly come back down when the gameplay began.

It’s important, however, to have realistic expectations if you take your Saturn online, and anyone expecting Xbox Live levels of performance is going to be disappointed. This is an almost 30-year-old console being taken back online via unconventional methods thanks to a passionate community, so naturally there’s going to be some quirks, performance hiccups, and issues to overcome.

But when it all clicks, when you see that call being answered and the games begin, you cannot help but smile and have a ton of fun. Massive thanks again to the SHIRO! guys for giving us the opportunity to purchase the modems, to Joe for his tireless work on the tunnel and help with connection issues, to Knight0fDragon for getting these kits out — and of course to the Patreon patrons who helped fund the purchase of these kits in the first place.

This really is an example of how amazing the Saturn community is and how rapidly it continues to grow. We chat about this console and its games on podcasts, social media, and Discord servers, but now we can experience them together.

But that’s just my take. There’s two of us here at The SEGAGuys, so here’s Dan “The Mega” Driver with his impressions of the NetLink.

Dan “The Mega” Driver

If I’ve learned one thing from the SEGA community over the years, it’s that nothing is impossible. Here in the UK, I was infatuated with the prospect of the then-futuristic services such as network play that SEGA was at the forefront of delivering for gamers.

Sadly, most of these never materialised in PAL regions. The SEGA Channel got a short lived and very restricted spin in one county. Modems for both the SEGA Mega Drive and SEGA Saturn never came to the region, despite the latter getting support in both the US and Japan.

As technology evolves, not only did it feel like we’d never experience the thrill of taking a SEGA Saturn console online, but modern broadband standards made it seem nearly impossible. But there’s that word again, and once more the community shows what a fallacy “impossible” is when it comes to delivering SEGA experiences from the past.

Not only does the fact that this 30-year-old console is able connect to other players online defy belief, but the sheer quality of the experience is truly astounding.

Setup is, by and large, relatively easy, depending on how tricky your ISP makes the process of opening ports, and finding a game by connecting via IP address is surprising quick once you’ve got over typing said address on the virtual keyboard.

James and I had some tests in the middle of the day where performance was acceptable given the achingly old tech, but it was a late night NetLink session which absolutely blew our minds.

Considering we’re at opposite ends of Britain gaming via a dial-up modem from the ’90s, the fact that we were playing Virtua Fighter Remix, Virtual On, SEGA Worldwide Soccer 98 and Daytona USA CE almost lag-free was nothing short of amazing. SEGA Rally suffered with a greater degree of lag that we couldn’t seem to shake despite our low pings, but was still incredibly playable.

As James says, this is not on par with a modern online gaming experience, but you must consider what is being done here and it truly is a miracle that this technology is working and performing at the levels it is.

Playing our SEGA Saturns online so far has been a transformative experience. Finally, a couple of UK SEGA Guys were able to sample something that was never intended for release in our part of the world and it performs wonderfully. And if that isn’t enough, we’re hoping to play more games against our SEGA brothers and sisters in the SHIRO! community as soon as we can on a device that was never intended for true international play.

Now that truly is taking SEGA Saturn gaming to the next level.

We’ll have lots more NetLink content over the coming weeks, so keep your eyes on The SEGAGuys YouTube channel!