Categories xxOLDOfficial News

Sega: 2014 is the Year of Sonic

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Author Dave Luty
62 Comments

I really don’t know how you’re going to react to this one… so try to remain calm.

Machinima has posted a very interesting YouTube video which contained the following image.

yearofsonic

The text on that image reads as follows…

2014 will mark a renaissance for Sonic the Hedgehog. Please join us to be the first to hear about SEGA’s exclusive announcements and plans for the Sonic brand”

“2014 is the Year of Sonic,” “Renaissance of the brand” and the image of the Sonic Boom promotional image. For those who don’t know, in it’s most basic term, renaissance means ‘rebirth.’  Now you understand why I said remain calm…

If you are doubting the authenticity of this image, to back it up, Segas entire community team, the head of marketing and several producers at Sega have recently made public that they are in New York City on a business trip. Given the huge numbers of staff in New York right now, and their roles, this is a potentially huge announcement which will have an impact over Sonic as a brand.

I can only begin to speculate what might be getting shown, but following so soon after hedgehog day which saw no announcements or even a Blog entry from Sega, the timing makes this more significant for Sonic fans.

As always, we will keep you upto date with news as and when we get it.

Thanks to SSMB member SweeCrew for the tip & screen cap.

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62 Comments

    1. I know right! I’m worried it will be a reboot based off the new Sonic Boom show! The thing is idk if the show is gonna be any good! If its a good show then the games that go with it might be pretty good. If the show is bad, then we are in a world for hurt! Either that or they’re truly going back to Sonics roots. Which is awesome but I kinda wish they wouldn’t. It would be cool to see classic sonic running around in games again, but it most likely won’t be the most original thing ever. I’d be fine with both as long as the show is good.

  3. Ok, so first there was the “Year of Luigi” in 2013, and now the “Year of Sonic”?

    What’s next? Is 2015 going to be the “Year of Pikachu”?

    1. That’s what crossed my mind when I saw this.

      If Sonic Boom is the frontrunner of this supposed “year of Sonic” then…it seems weak.

  4. I’m going to bolt my tables down so no one can flip them.

    I will not flip my tables. I flip lids.

    ANYWAY. This is going to lead somewhere, although I’m praying it’s more of a divergence of the brand than anything. Let the “modern” Sonic perhaps go T if it needs to (as Sonic was originally made for American teenagers), while this new design and such goes into E and below, since it…well, it’s obvious they want to market it to young boys (really should be young kids if you ask me, but they said young boys with the cartoon :I ) so I can see these designs easily being even more cartoony and…kiddy.

    Just my take. No need to panic yet, there could easily be two versions of Sonic running around, main series and sub series. Just my thoughts :3

    1. I could kinda see that, stuff like Sonic Boom Sonic and such would be for the younger in age as well as some of the side games, where as the games’s Modern Sonic would be the for the more older crowd for his main games and other spin-off games.

  6. Ugh… it’s always unpleasant to think about what SEGA has in-store for poor old Sonic.

    You want to have confidence, but I know that no matter what they do, they will never be able to make a good Sonic game.

    I can say this with the utmost confidence, I’m afraid. -_-

    Well, whatever they do, something…. interesting should come out of it.

    1. Oh yeah forgot about the DLC, I wonder how it will work and which zelda style it would be based on, OoT is meh to me, wind waker would be cool, TP is too dark, Too be honest I think the SS style would work the best

  9. …………..*Sigh* It’s announcements like these that I hate the most. I don’t know what to think about it! Should I be excited? Should I be afraid? Should I just be indifferent altogether!?…Okay, maybe not that one, but I’m still confused!! We knew for months that they were planning Sonic Boom, the third Nintendo Exclusive, and just recently (despite poor attempts to convince us otherwise) the first Sonic game on next gen consoles, but somehow this announcement managed to take all of those things that we knew about and made them ten times more mysterious!!! I think what scares me the most though is that SEGA is the one saying that this is “The Year of Sonic”, that this year will be the year of a “Sonic Renaissance”…Now when fans say this, that’s easier to swallow. It’s all in hindsight and most people tend to agree. But when a company, especially a company like SEGA, assures everyone that THIS is going to be the point where Sonic gets better…somehow, it becomes less clear. I mean, I would have thought that they would have done something like this on a more interesting year, like 2016, the year of the 25th Anniversary. Still…at the same time, I am interested, dare I say excited, to see something, anything new. I tend to look at upcoming Sonic stuff with optimism and an open mind, but I do have my concerns. Still, I guess we’ll find out tomorrow. I’m interested in seeing exactly where the immediate future lies for Sonic.

  11. If Iizuka is monitoring the cartoon show on Cartoon Network, and this image truly is from SEGA, then I am just hoping that this doesn’t mean Sonic is being rebooted. Of course, I won’t panic. Nothing has really happened yet, and for all we know, this could be just them wanting to make something cool this year. I don’t know. So for now, everything is good, in my opinion.

    1. Id rather it be Sonic 06.

      Id rather it be my idol Ive known my whole life in a shitty game rather than something new and different in a good one.

      2. Um…What? O_o

        I’m trying very hard to understand the logic behind this, but…No, I don’t get it. I’m confused. I’m the exact opposite. o_o

        1. I think he’s saying he’d rather have a Sonic that was still the same one from the past games like 06 instead of whatever they are planning to do to mess him up in whatever abomination reboot that could happen with something like Sonic Boom.

      3. Um…….so you’d rather go down with the ship that you’ve been on you’re entire life as it’s sinking rather than getting on the same lifeboat as someone you don’t like?………. I honestly have no idea, I’m still trying to make sense of that. I can understand not wanting things to change, but not wanting things to change to the point where nothing improves at all is just stubborn and sad. It’s not going to be a reboot, that’s just crazy. They’re just deciding to make a bigger deal about their IP than ever before…which is a lot to say because they always make a big deal about Sonic every year, so this year should certainly be…interesting.

  13. Im so scared right now. If they start from scratch and make everyone have that look, I dont think Id be able to handle it.

    1. Because most of us here are actually worried on the fact that just about everything from the characters we love like Blaze, Shadow, and others and the things we’ve come to know of the Sonic series are about to be wiped away like they were nothing and completely misrepresented just to appeal to the younger demographic and thus pissing off the hundreds of fans of them to no end.

      I dunno, is that a good reason to be worried?

      1. Wasn’t this expected to happen at one point though? SEGA tried to make Sonic grow up with the fans *cough* Sonic 2006 *cough* but they failed. All Sonic games that followed were an awkward mixture of older-fan-appeasing Sonic and new-child-audience-grabbing Sonic with new-child-audience-grabbing Sonic usually taking the bigger chunk of Sonic’s identity- Colors and Lost World being more glaring examples than the rest. Now, SEGA has finally chosen which one to drop and which one to go full throttle on. Honestly, I do see the reason for concern. If SEGA does something stupid like making Sonic suddenly go after Amy instead of the opposite, there is going to be a shit storm among the fans. That is just one of the many things they can do to ruin Sonic for SOME of us though. One of many, many things. How bad can it be though? Change Knuckles’ design? I could get used to it. Drop his role as guardian of the emerald and drop the rest of the Sonic adventure related content? They’ve practically done that already. Make Knuckles a bad-ass instead of a gullible knucklehead? I just may prefer that Knuckles more than the current one. All in all, this is going somewhere new and it’s up to us whether we will deal with it or not. I for one am certainly ready for what they’ve got to throw at us.

        P.S.: I don’t think you need to worry about Blaze. Yes, she is an amazing character, but she isn’t the face of Sonic so I don’t believe they would bother changing her character. In fact, I’m sure they’d rather drop her character entirely, but let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

        1. So that’s the best solution, abandon all the fans that stayed true to them and still supported then even through the dark times and still gave positive feelings towards games like Unleashed which found a great sense of balance between a light-hearted yet serious story, abandon those that still play Sonic and want Sonic himself in order to please a new crowd that doesn’t even care about Sonic by not being Sonic at all, and that’s the same problem that a game like Lost World suffers from, it wants to target an audience that doesn’t even want it to begin with.

          Sure I want Knuckles to be a badass again, yes I want more Blaze, and I want all the characters to shine, but if it’s going to be like this where they are nothing but vauge shadows of their former selves with nothing but their names attaching them to who they are, then why would we even want to support this anymore? Do I honestly want Blaze to be given the short end of the stick just like she has in 06 and in Archie’s bad fan-fic level comics? You bet your ass I don’t.

  15. WHY IS EVERY VIDEO GAME CO. CAIMING IT AS THEIR YEAR!!! First the Year of Luigi is a two year thing, the year of Shantae, and this??? What’s next, the year of Bubsy! Please…

  16. Wait…is this even real? I searched on YouTube for the name of the video but couldn’t find it anywhere…I even searched on Machinima’s channel and couldn’t find it. Does anyone have a link? Has it been deleted? Or is it fake?

  18. They put the video on private for some reason.. Nothing worth seeing, SANIC dochbagary and unnecessary Scolding.

    Either Sega told them to take it down or they realized what they did was completely retarted. :U

  19. This is a spoiler alert about the year of Sonic copy the year of Luigi but Similar but it’s tomorrow alright!

  20. Whatever they do to Sonic, I don’t mind. BUT if they change Sonic’s design due to this Sonic Boom series then I’m gonna br a tad upset. 🙁

  21. Serving cocktails at a SEGA event should give off that this announcement is probably false. SEGA isn’t lousy when it comes to marketing their products, and to risk somebody taking a picture of people having alcoholic beverages next to a Sonic Mascot or in a spot that shows that they’re clearly at a SEGA event is completely out of the range of possibilities when it comes to the company. Sonic as a gaming brand is in a tough spot right now when it comes to relevance in the public eye, and the risk would not be all that well. Also, little kids would probably go the event, and be influenced by people drinking cocktails, which is something SEGA would not want to have the Sonic brand associated with.

    1. You forget that before this was announced, there were a bunch of SEGA representatives like Aaron Webber spotted in the area this is set to take place in.

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  25. I like how everyone’s completely overreacting to this when we currently know absolutely nothing about what it actually is. Calm down guys, “renaissance” doesn’t just mean ‘rebirth’ it could also just imply a ‘revival’ of the brand: something SEGA have been trying to do since Sonic 2006.

    And if it is a redesign or reboot of the entire series: well, it’s not the first time that has happened. The shift between Sonic & Knuckles to Sonic Adventure was huge (the look of Sonic himself was drastically altered), and even the shift in tone from Sonic Adventure’s story to Sonic Adventure 2’s “darker” story was a pretty major thing for the franchise. I find it strange that people are worried about SEGA sweeping away Sonic’s “extended” family because, heads up, they did it years ago. Sonic Unleashed intentionally did away with Sonic’s entire extended family of friends, and they’ve only showed up since in Sonic Generations: an anniversary game (and even then only briefly).

    This kind of thing isn’t new: all franchises must evolve to stay relevant and interesting for newer generations. It is the way of the world. As long as the games are fun to play, I don’t care what they do to Sonic’s look.

    1. This is probably the first time I’ve ever agreed with a post of yours, but I agree wholeheartedly and very strongly with what you’ve said.

  27. Um, I think everyone is taking the “rebirth” part of “renaissance” a bit too seriously. Just because the original renaissance was meant to be the dawn of a new era, a new beginning, doesn’t mean that the same thing applies to Sonic now. It just means that they are going to really play him up (more than usual) and have a bunch of new ideas coming in to try and add to the brand. The “renaissance” here means about as much rebirth as a Renaissance fair, which was revisiting old ideas and old cultures, the EXACT OPPOSITE of it’s written definition. “Rebirth” is just used for dramatic flare, the true essence of renaissance is new ideas to better shape the future. Now what that means exactly has yet to be seen, but I can tell you one thing, it WON’T mean the end of the series as we have known it for the past 23 years! Instead of seeing this as another opportunity to say “Sonic’s dead!”, try seeing this as just another fancy press release that always comes with teasing a new game, like with Lost World and Generations. I would like to think that by the end of the day, all we really want is clarity, so let’s just hope for that.

  28. It’s today. I’m gonna keep my eyes peeled for developments. Pretty excited but nervous at the same time. XD

  29. Fans these days. I miss growing up in the 90s where we didnt have the internet *not till later* and we were grateful for any news of a new game bad or good. These days fans act as if the fate of the world is at state every game release.

    1. It really was a simpler time. It was easier to appreciate anything and everything that came out and not be so pointlessly skeptical and judgmental.

      Just more proof that we’re all getting old.

  30. I dont think people would be panicking as much if it wasn’t for the silhouette of knuckles :p
    The others actually look alright..

  31. i dont like the idea of a reboot. they said the cartoon will only have sonic, tails, knuckles, amy and eggman. so that means metal is being taken out of the picture an if this leads the new canon then everything will be bad.
    just go back to the generations gameplay and canon.

  34. Are we even gonna have any way of knowing what’s going on? *as the event is going right this second*

  35. This really comes as no surprise for me. Its becoming usual practice for corporations to ‘reboot’ their IPs every decade or so to appeal a new generation of consumers. Its been 16 years since Sonic got his last update so this has been in order.

    Come on guys, throw away that paranoia and embrace the change!

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