Satellaview

Background

The Satellaview was a Japanese peripheral for the Super Famicom, developed by Nintendo in collaboration with St.GIGA, a now-defunct Japanese satellite radio company. Released on April 23, 1995 and discontinued on June 30, 2000, it was designed for downloading content through the use of satellite broadcasts hosted by St.GIGA.

BS-X: Sore wa Namae o Nusumareta Machi no Monogatari is the cartridge that the peripheral uses to interact with the Satellaview service. It acts as a video-game and an interactive menu hybrid, consisting of an in-game hub similar to that of Earthbound.

(April 23, 1995-June 30, 2000)

The Nintendo logo
The BS-X logo
English variant

Nicknames: "Nintendo in the City", "The Town Whose Name Was Stolen"

Logo: We first see the silhouette of a city in front of a yellow-dark blue gradient background (throughout the logo, it changes to dark blue, yellow-dark blue, and cyan-white). A thin line forms, and then stretches itself into a silver Nintendo logo, with the inside of the logo being dark purple. The logo then shines, and the inside turns silver. The city then begins scrolling to the left, and the screen then cross-fades into white. We then fade into the name "BS-X" with multicolored dots and the city inside of the text. There is dark blue Japanese text below the BS-X logo ("The Town Whose Name Was Stolen"). Below said text is the byline for Nintendo. Below the byline is black Japanese text ("Satellite Data Broadcast"). After 9 seconds, the blue Japanese text slides away to the left of the screen, in which we see the Satellaview's two mascots, Parabô, a green humanoid robot with a light grey, circular head and a yellow satellite dish on top of his head, and Satebô, a red communications satellite with a yellow, rectangular face, black antennae on top of his head and blue and white solar panels. Parabô is seen walking from right to left below the BS-X logo, stopping momentarily to jump up and down while waving his arms up and down when he is at the center of the screen, while Satebô is seen flying around the logo. When both characters move off-screen (Parabô walks off the left side of the screen while Satebô flies off to the right), the blue Japanese text slides right back in. The logo loops after this.

Variant: An English version exists.

FX/SFX: Sprite animation coupled with other Super Famicom special effects.

Music/Sounds: A 7-second music loop, consisting of a bell arpeggio with an ascending and descending synth noise in the background. The logo first starts with a Super Mario-esque "ka-ping" noise, and then a descending and ascending "whoosh" sound.

Availability: Seen when you boot up BS-X: Sore wa Namae o Nusumareta Machi no Monogatari with the Satellaview addon attached to a Super Famicom.

Editor's Note: This logo is pretty nice, especially for its time.