It was. Very much so. I have a lot of fond memories of playing Kirby's Avalanche and Killer Instinct on the SNES over the phone lines. I could not fathom why more people didn't flock to the XBAND. It represented everything I ever wanted as a kid gamer.
They had the right idea. Way before its time unfortunately, and shockingly. I still don't really understand why it didn't take off.
Luckily, just last month (May 2019) there was a one hour documentary on it that covered a lot of the development of the unit. Well worth watching.
Yup, I am so glad you posted this. I remember watching this video a month ago and enjoyed being reminded of it.
The part about how they live-patched the game to simulate input was very cool to hear, because that's exactly how I would have approached it and it was with the drawbacks/challenges I knew would come with.
They had the right idea. Way before its time unfortunately, and shockingly. I still don't really understand why it didn't take off.
Luckily, just last month (May 2019) there was a one hour documentary on it that covered a lot of the development of the unit. Well worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_5M-z_RUKA