St. GIGA
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Satellite Digital Audio Broadcast Co., Ltd., also known as St. GIGA (stylized as St.GIGA), was a Japanese satellite radio company most known for co-developing the Satellaview, a peripheral for the Super Famicom that enabled games to be downloaded and played by way of satellite broadcast, with Nintendo. They were also responsible for developing the various "BS" titles for the peripheral, including BS The Legend of Zelda, Ancient Stone Tablets, and a port of A Link to the Past.
History
St. GIGA was founded on April 2, 1990 as a satellite radio broadcasting company subsidiary of the Japanese satellite television company, WOWOW.[1] Over the next several years, St. GIGA continued to upgrade to more powerful satellites as their popularity increased. After partnering with Nintendo, St. GIGA began their broadcasts on Satellaview. The first air date was April 23, 1995. These airings included many games, such as the BS The Legend of Zelda and BS Mario series. This partnership would last until 1998, when Nintendo withdrew five of its executive staff from the company and pulled all content plans for the Satellaview alongside other content providers like Kyocera following St. GIGA's rejection of a debt management plan and failure to renew its government satellite license by a deadline.[2][3] As Nintendo halted supplying new content for the peripheral in March 1999, St. GIGA would continue broadcasting reruns of previously-transmitted games until June 30, 2000, when the company officially discontinued broadcasts for the Satellaview.[2]
Nearing bankruptcy, St.GIGA would merge with Japanese radio station provider WireBee and be renamed to Club COSMO in 2003.[4] There were several attempts to revive their original broadcasts, but most of them quickly fell flat. The only notable one took place in 2007, where there were actual broadcasts.
Trivia
- Each of the first six Dungeons in the first BS The Legend of Zelda quest are in the shape of a letter. When put together, it spells out St.GIGA.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 セント・ギガの歴史 , stgiga.jp (Internet Archive), retrieved March 6, 2014.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://web.archive.org/web/20160303182437/http://belarus.8m.com/1/cnn060001.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20200124002906/https://www.ign.com/articles/1998/08/22/giga-bites-the-dust
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20201226223215/http://www.radionikkei.jp/webmaster/entry-72888.html
 Names in Other Regions 
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| Language | Name | |
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Japanese | セント・ギガ (Sento Giga) |