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According to a scan of the back of the Sonic Riders PC manual, and Amazon.com, what Sonic Next fans without any of those newfangled consoles have been waiting for is no longer just a nice idea!
Thanks to Shadow Hog of The GHZ for pointing this out – perhaps this will bring new opportunities to fans of the new Sonic game, eh?
Simon Jeffery, head of SEGA US, recently spoke to BusinessWeek.com about what SEGA see of the future for PS2, when he dropped a potentially interesting hint about possible future Sonic titles.
The following is a excerpt from the interview.
What strategy should a software developer like Sega take?
We’re really balancing our portfolio of games for old-gen and new-gen hardware. We’re focusing our big investments on the next generation, and we’re making sure we have a balanced portfolio of kids’ games and family-oriented products and movie tie-ins. Continue reading More Sonic Titles Coming To PS2?
Here it is SatAM fans, the moment you’ve all been waiting for since the announcement of the SatAm box set: The box art, special features, retail price, and release date have all been revealed.
Firstly, the special features are as follows:
According to the latest monthly report from NPD Funworld, the well known video game sales tracking company, Sonic the Hedgehog was a huge bomb last month at US retail, selling a total 38,000 units throughout it’s first two weeks.
For the unlearned, these numbers are very, very bad for a series like Sonic, which can often garner anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 in it’s launch month.
Despite the ad blitz Sega put behind the game, it seems ultimately, the games poor reception from the press and gamers alike was it’s downfall. Only time will tell if it’s sales will shape up.
The Sonic Site Awards results were announced Sunday in its annual radio broadcast.
For the first time in its history, the radio show, broadcasted simultaneously on Sega Sonic Radio and Sega Games Radio, went smoothly without any problems, and the reduced number of awards meant a show which ballooned in length in recent years was comfortably under three hours this year.
After a disappointing voting turnout in 2005, SSA’s decision to require user registration is starting to bear fruit. Despite having nine less awards and half the time to vote, voting was higher than last year, at over 4,000 votes from over 600 people, many of whom used their accounts registered for last year’s SSA. Continue reading Sonic Site Awards ’06 Results
Let’s face it, SONIC The Hedgehog has fought an uphill battle since the first critical impressions leaked out in early November. This, however, it seems has not managed to slow Sonic at all, with the new title reaching top ten XBox 360 sales charts in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
In the United Kingdom, SONIC The Hedgehog has fallen from it’s position in ninth place last week to a still reputable tenth place.
1 Gears of War
2 Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas
3 Call of Duty 3
4 Pro Evolution Soccer 6
5 FIFA 07
6 WWE Smackdown! Vs. RAW 2007
7 Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07
8 Need For Speed: Carbon
9 Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Double Agent
10 Sonic the Hedgehog
UK charts provided by ELSPA. Continue reading PAL: SONIC The Hedgehog Hits Top Ten
IGN recently name their top ten video game franchises in need of a re-redesign, with the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise taking out the top spot. Other legendary franchises were not spared either by IGN, with Sonic The Hedgehog beating them all.
IGN’s full list is as follows.
10. Gauntlet
9. Secret of Mana
8. Donkey Kong
7. Contra
6. Mega Man
5. Mario Kart
4. Star Fox
3. Castlevania
2. Bomberman
1. Sonic The Hedgehog Continue reading Sonic in Desperate Need of Redesign
Just as fans of Sonic the Hedgehog had eagerly awaited the launch of Sonic’s newest high definition outing for the XBox 360, they are awaiting the Playstation 3 version in hope that SEGA has patched the coding errors in the game that managed to lessen the gameplay experience on Microsoft’s next generation console. But is the wait really that short? Online journalism website Gamespot seems to disagree.
As a rather ‘last-minute’ update to their Sonic the Hedgehog section for Playstation 3, they have changed the debut date for the Blue Blur’s Sony outing to January 30th, 2007.
Quite a kick in the bollocks for those fans whom camped out for days waiting for Sony’s newest console, however all is not lost – you could always hoard your console with videos to pass away the time. You’ve done most of the deed, now it’s time for the waiting game.
The latest Famitsu magazine has hit store shelves in Japan, and the four editors have rated Sonic the Hedgehog on XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3 rather healthily.
Sonic’s latest adventure was rated on both next generation platforms and received overall scores of 30/40 and 29/40 respectively. A bit of a surprising score considering the general panning the game has had from other outlets, stranger still rating the 360 version higher than the PS3 offering.
Famitsu is regarded as the ultimate gaming tome in the land of the rising sun, and is even highly respected in Western circles. Their reviews are hyper-critical most times, and feature four writers or editors assessing the game and each giving a score out of 10. As such, games scoring 30 or higher out of a possible 40 is seen as a promising assessment. Continue reading Famitsu Scores Sonic
While avid Sonic fans are entertaining themselves with their newly acquired games for both the PSP and XBox 360, SEGA has begun to step a bit further into comsumer space to advertise these games (Sonic the Hedgehog on XBox 360 and Sonic Rivals on PSP) to a more expansive audience via Microsoft’s own advertisement network.
On the fourth of December, an agreement was signed with Microsoft to launch a theme pack for Windows Live Messenger, that allows users to easily and effectively have their conversation windows remind them of the blue blur himself.
The Head of Marketing at SEGA UK, Tina Hicks, also had a comment regarding the newly signed agreement: “We have a wide audience to reach and converse with. The MSN theme pack enables users to interact with the Sonic brand in a way that is not possible with standard online advertising or rich media, which can be a far more passive way of talking to consumers.”
From the description of the theme pack given, it sounds as if it will feature a complete Live overhaul – this, of course, includes winks, emotions, and backgrounds. A release date for the theme pack and starting date for the advertising campaign has yet to be announced.
The Sonic Site Awards‘ “Phase 2” voting phase opened Sunday night, and will close on Friday 15th December.
The Sonic Stadium’s awards ceremony, now in its fifth year, has been shortened substantially to end before Christmas, due to a busy second half of the year for the site and its staff, and the voting phase is set to last for only two weeks, resulting in lower turnout from voters than previous years.
With this in mind, the Stadium encourages anyone reading this story to tell other Sonic fans about the Awards, get others to vote for the sites and fans they think deserve awards most, and to vote themselves if they haven’t already! Voting is quick and easy through the SSA home page, and you only need a Sonic Stadium Account which is absolutely free and only takes a minute to register for. Even if you’re banned from the SSMB your account will still be able to vote.
The results of the vote will be announced during an SSA Sega Sonic Radio broadcast on Sunday 17th December. The show has had well over 60 listeners in the past, and this year is not expected to be any different.
