Well here’s something we didn’t know existed! Sega has teamed up with watch maker Swatch to create a special Sonic-themed timepiece. It’s called the “SEGA Sonic .beat Special”, and is a version of Swatch’s line of .beat ‘internet watches’ themed in the platforming star’s classic red, white and blue design.
The main appeal of the .beat watch, according to Swatch, is that it can help tell the universal ‘time’ of the world wide web. So this Sonic watch includes ‘beats’, which is the equivalent of internet ‘seconds’, as well as the traditional time. It’s all part of a broader partnership between Swatch and Sega that also involves Swatch Internet Time integration in Dreamcast games and other branding collaborations – the theme, according to the press release, being ‘Access to Cyberspace’.
The watch also comes with a bunch of Sonic branding and packaging, which you can see below.
The watch was actually announced in February 2000 (way before this website was even made), so it’s probably been kicking around for a while, but this is the first we’ve heard of it so we figured it would be good to talk about it – in case you wanted to go out and buy one. I know I would!
Image and detail via http://users.iol.it/tictac/Infor.html and SPOnG (Press Release)