Sega has contracted with Flextech, a UK cable and satellite operator, to offer customers of cable TV companies the chance to download and play as many as 25 games a month for ú9.95 (per month).

According to Sega, the arrangement will be the same as in the US, where subscribers plug an add-on module into their Megadrive games consoles that links to the cable company's set-top box and allows the high-speed download of game data into memory for session play.

The slight downside of this is that much of the game is still held on a central computer, meaning that, to continue playing, the channel -and the cable TV set-top box -- must continue to be used. The upside, of course, is that Sega retains complete control over the games offered on the games channel.

As in the US, where the service was launched just prior to Christmas, 1994, Sega plans to offer preview games of planned new releases, presumably aiming to wet the appetites of game-playing kids who will want to buy the new games as soon as they are released -- and, presumably, no longer available for gameplay on the Sega Channel when the games cartridge release occurs.

According to Andrew Shaw, Flextech's vice president, the company has high hopes that the Sega Channel will allow cable TV companies to install second lines into people's homes to allow them to continue watching TV, while their kids play interactive games on the Sega Channel.

Officials with Sega claim that game data will take around a minute to download from the Sega Channel. When the Megadrive is disconnected from the set-top box, and/or switched off, the contents of the module's memory are lost.

Sega has high hopes for the Sega Channel in the UK -- the company claims that around three million games console units are in use in the UK alone, and cable TV penetration is excellent in the country. Plans are in hand to offer the Sega Channel elsewhere in Europe, specifically in Germany, the Netherlands, and Norway.

(Steve Gold/19960624/Press & Reader Contact: Sega, +44-171-995-3399)