Happy Birthday to us! The Sonic Stadium was launched on this day, nine long years ago. Originally a place I created while at school to just write about my favourite game series, this place quickly became one of the most popular places to go to online. Over its long history, this site has had countless firsts, loads of exclusives, official recognition from SEGA, and been the cause of many legendary community initiatives, with the most recent being the Summer of Sonic convention.
While it’s true that we have led the way in many ways regarding Sonic site communities and approaches to design and philosophies, the real success story is in the many Sonic fans that come to TSS to enjoy what we have to say in one weird way or another. You, the visitors, are what truly make TSS great and I want to thank you so much for giving me the encouragement to stick with it for nine years. Continue reading Happy Birthday to TSS!
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So crap went down with TSS’ servers, and we lost a whole lot of stuff. Read the SSMB Topic to find out just what happened. Considering the servers had been randomly crapping out every now and then the week leading up to the wipe, I’m obviously annoyed that I was dumb enough to not make regular backups up until the fateful incident. To be fair, I did have backups for both TSS and SSMB from the 15th February – but alas, when Apple says Time Machine ‘works’, what it really means it ‘selectively works’. Those backups were indeed lost, and it was by good fortune that I was using a copy of the TSS backup actively on my localhost that we avoided total meltdown.
While I’ll happily call myself an idiot for not taking necessary steps, you can call it karma or whatever you want, I must extend my thanks to those who wished us well (and still do wish us a speedy recovery), be it other sites like Sonic Retro and TSSZ or individuals that visit them. I guess the majority of the Sonic community aren’t total retards to a fellow fan’s tragedy, despite whatever views they may hold of each other. For example, I can’t say we’ve had the best relationship with TSSZ as of late, but I’d like to say this event has forged a new-found respect for one another in the very least.
Sonic the Hedgehog is a franchise primarily for kids, so it stands to reason that a lot of those in the community today are in fact children or young teenagers. I guess it stands to reason that there was a bit of negativity towards us when word got around of our troubles. When they get older they’ll understand that we do in fact love Sonic and indeed his later games too – I’m playing Sonic Unleashed while writing this update (I’d be playing Black Knight, but it’s not out in the UK yet) in fact.
The whole “TSS hates modern Sonic 100%, SSMB hates anyone being critical of the franchise” is a misconception that has captured the mind of the young, and it’s something I hope we can use this opportunity to show that this is not the case. We’re just a bunch of adults that grew up with the blue blur and still love to cover his franchise, for better or worse. We may be critical at times, but who isn’t? That’s human nature.
So to rebuilding TSS and SSMB it is – I hope those that have enjoyed our fan coverage will continue to enjoy it, and those that see us negatively get the opportunity to maybe see us in a different light. After all, we may not like one another’s opinions, but it’s silly to outright hate someone for it. We’re all fans, in this community together. Let’s make the most of it.
I’ll use this as a chance to say that old articles, reviews, previews and (hopefully) news that were written by TSS staff before the change to WordPress in 2008 are being added to the archive, extending our information database to cover the rich history we have enjoyed online. I am also working on revamping the site design, with an aim to return the site to it’s 2007 information-heavy glory days. All the while, we’ll be trying to recover our most recent articles that we lost (we’re prioritising with big-hitters like our interview with Archie legend Matt Herms and other articles).
TSS will be truly back baby! Just give us a second.
… Give us another second. We’re not that quick.
Also, the sidebar’s not working properly. I’ll get on that.
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It’s taken a while for us to actually bother with setting up the comments system on TSS. The main reason being is that we wanted those who had signed up on our SSMB Forums to be able to simply log in and comment on stories posted on the main site. Integration, and all that. Turns out that pipe dream’s going to take a bit longer than expected, due to the fact that we need a new version of our forum software to actually start creating our own integrations and what-have you.
So for the time being, you can comment on any of our stories without waiting for any of that forum-linkup nonsense to take place. You can even register an account if you want the site to remember you, if that’s what you’re into. So go do it, and be the coolest Sonic kid on the block, or something.
Also, and we’ve had this for a while but we never really made it obvious – if you have a news tip or anything you would like to submit to The Sonic Stadium for coverage, we have a ‘Send Tips’ page where you can fill in a little form and we’ll respond in kind. It doesn’t matter what it is; whether it’s info on the latest game, your new fan project, a piece of merchandise you’ve spotted (past or present) or some random Sonic video you’ve spotted on Youtube, we’d love to hear from you!
Use this story to let us know what you think of TSS so far in 2009! We’ve got a few more awesome surprises coming your way, so stay tuned to us, as we’ll be getting special features and community updates that you won’t see anywhere else.
The Sonic Stadium may link to retailers and earn a small commission on purchases made from users who click those links. These links will only appear in articles related to the product, in an unobtrusive manner, and do not influence our editorial decisions in any way.
Just a quick’un guys – remember we just released a new look for TSS? Well, it’s awesome and all, but not for Internet Explorer. Sorry about that. I’ll get it sorted soon as possible. Until then, er, use Firefox! I’m away from the TSS Tower right now so can’t really do anything about it for a few hours.
UPDATE: This is a quick fix for now, forcing the design to Narrow Hedgehog with a shoehorned design. I’ll fix it properly a bit later. Sorry guys! Least you can read stuff now 🙂
UPDATE 2: Everything’s working peachy now, so enjoy widescreen Sonic reading in Internet Explorer. Even if it does suck is the most popular browser.
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You might have woken up this morning and found your favourite Sonic the Hedgehog website to be looking a little different. We’ve decided to do some early Spring cleaning for the New Year, which means a more streamlined browsing experience for you, discerning reader. This new design allows for fullsize viewing, so if you have a massive monitor you don’t have to worry about trying to get info out of a narrow box. The background in the header will set itself to classic Sonic the Hedgehog stages – as it’s still Winter (and bloody cold) we thought Ice Cap was a good choice this season. Click the Sonic Head in the navigation bar (next to the RSS button) to listen to SEGASonic Radio as you surf – wouldn’t it be cool to hear Ice Cap as you’re reading this now?
If all this change is too much for you, then fret not. You can switch back to the old design by using the nifty new Theme Switcher in the right hand sidebar. It’s a little dropdown underneath the ‘Searcharoo’ box. It’s now called ‘Narrow Hedgehog’ – we’ve spruced up that design a bit too, so whatever you’re using to view TSS know that it’s fresh, B-Boy.
Expect more revamps over the course of the month – I’m currently responsible for redesigning Sonic Showcase Network (with a brand new Gallery in tow), the new SEGASonic Radio website, SSMB (once the new IPB software gets released, that is) and the 2009 edition of the Summer of Sonic website. Not to mention a secret project of mine… mwaha. Anyway, enjoy TSS in widescreen, or continue to enjoy in narrowscreen, if you like.
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It’s been a bit of a mental Christmas at TSS Towers. Despite the fact that I’m too poor to buy many presents this year, I seem to have come into a bit of a windfall of packages from Up North to the Land of Oz. I’ve had gestures of goodwill from AAUK/SEGA, T-Bird, Elson ‘Darkspeeds’ Wong, Jemnezmy, Hawkz, Urtheart and DiscoPonies so I figure I will share with you lot what came in the mail this week.
First, AAUK and SEGA Europe sent us this rather natty card, above. You’ll remember this design as it’s the same one on the promotional advent calendars we received during our trip to playtest Sonic Unleashed. “To The Sonic Stadium, Merry Christmas, From SEGA” it reads. Bless your hearts, guys. Continue reading To The Sonic Stadium…
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I was bored one day and decided ‘Hey, why don’t I make the site somewhat accessible for people who like to browse stuff on their consoles?’ So, ignorant to the fact that it probably wasn’t worth my time to work on something like that for the kind of person who does that sort of thing (which includes, er, me), I’ve tweaked the design of The Sonic Stadium for Sony PlayStation Portable users.
Accessing the site is now a piece of piss, as I was made aware that it was bone-grindingly slow today. Upon recognising the PSP Browser, TSS auto-switches to a custom made theme that suits the 400-odd pixel wide screen. There’s no sidebar, and a lot of the heavy duty stuff is cut, but the exact same content and stuff is all there. So if you fancy a little fiddle, crack open that PSP and let us know what you think in the SSMB (although the forums are still PSP unfriendly at this time, so use your PC for that).
You can also sign up to the RSS on your Sony handheld too, by clicking the RSS link at the footer of the page. Swish.
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One of the things that The Sonic Stadium is known for, beyond our eight-year history, is our bizarre sense of humour. This humour is usually implemented in our banner adverts, which we’ve had rolling for several years now. Although the banner advertisement service allows for other Sonic sites to get noticed via visiting TSS, sometimes we got bored and made our own stuff to put up on the rotation. These varied from adverts for articles and specific updates to the site itself to random ways of advertising the advert service itself.
Hit the jump for a gallery of past banners, used at some stage during The Sonic Stadium’s life. Not all of the banners have been saved unfortunately, but here’s what we have salvaged. Enjoy. Continue reading TSS History: The Banners
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We thought we’d share this cool little gift we got from Simon, also known as ‘ForeverSonic’, at the Video Games Live concert on Friday. It’s a little card wishing the site a happy 8th birthday, along with a little present. And you know how the best presents are always homemade (unless they’re from Sega or us, of course). A lot of time and effort must have gone into making this fluffy Sonic head, although now we’re worried if there’s a fluffy Sonic body wandering the earth looking for it. It is Halloween this week after all.
There was also an awesome Tails head made as well. You can see that above too. Happy birthday TSS – our blasts from the past continue tomorrow!
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The Sonic Stadium is eight years old today (and it was Cephrien’s birthday a few days ago too, so happy birthday to you too). It’s hard to imagine that this little site of mine would be so involved in an international community like this, but we’re here today amongst other awesome websites like Sonic Retro and Sonic Fan Games HQ, and man is it all good.
As you may be aware, I’ve been chronicling the years of TSS, from beginning to end (we’re at 2001 at this moment in time, but over the course of the next week you’ll learn more about the last few years too) in celebration of what this website has achieved in its lifetime. Needless to say that (trumpet blowing time) the impact The Sonic Stadium has made on the Sonic the Hedgehog community is nothing to be scoffed at.
The Sonic Site Awards gave smaller Sonic sites (including TSS at the time) a chance to be seen amongst the big boys. The approach I made to Sega Europe in 2005 has led to the publisher gaining an interest in their target audience, which led to the creation of their Community department, the Sonic City website and the arrival of everyone’s favourite neighbourhood Sega-man, AAUK, to take pole position of what’s going on worldwide. The TSS Network helped raise the profiles of numerous fellow sites, including FastFeet Media and Sonic Cage Dome.
And then of course, you have my latest creation. Something that I am probably the most proud of besides TSS itself. The Summer of Sonic, which can essentially be called two creations under one name. Originally a website, it was born out of a concept I had waaaay back in 2001; that there should be a Sonic fansite where every single prominent webmaster should contribute to. At the time, the idea was to have a Community website that involved myself, Tristan from TSSZ (who was a lot less controversial than he is now arguably), Sonic HQ, The Sonic Foundation, Shadow of a Hedgehog… it would be a site where the whole community got involved and contributed to. Continue reading Happy Birthday TSS! PLUS BONUS ANNOUNCEMENT!
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This is part of an ongoing series of features that looks back on the history of The Sonic Stadium. You can find out more about how this website changed the Sonic community, what it looked like back in the day, and even special images and update notes from the archive.
She’s Got The Look
The launch of The Sonic Stadium had a very good initial response – some thirty people or so were regularly visitng the website in just a few weeks since it’s opening, which is pretty admirable considering that it did so with no fanfare or anything. The first few months in 2001 would prove to be much tougher, as beginner’s luck would set in and the casually interested visitors would drop off and head to more interesting sites like The Sonic Foundation and Sonic HQ.
To combat this, towards the end of 2000 I began work on a new site design. One with a dark background, two sidebars and room for a lot of links to different pages. Still feeling my way around web design, I took a free template and fiddled with that to get the look I wanted. It wasn’t a very good idea at the time because I missed several updates because of this, but it taught me a lot about how to achieve certain things in a webpage.
While I was preparing this new design, I realised I needed more space than Angelfire’s 50Meg service provided. As a result of weeks of searching, The Sonic Stadium was moved onto a supposedly limitless, free host called Stas.net which included no ad-banners whatsoever. This became my undoing, as the bursting bubble of the dot com boom meant places like Stas ended up disappearing without so much as a ‘We’re closing down, bye’ message. There aren’t many images and backups of this design, as the only copies were on Stas. This meant I had to start from practically scratch. Even worse was I had my GCSE exams this year, so the revival would have to wait until several months later… Continue reading TSS Timeline: The Year 2001
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This is the first in a series of features that looks back on the history of The Sonic Stadium. You can find out more about how this website changed the Sonic community, what it looked like back in the day, and even special images and update notes from the archive.
Prelude
I’ve always been a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog, ever since I saw the Mega Drive game that my friend owned (which resulted in me accidently getting a Master System in my childhood ways). Every bit of my pocket money would go on the games, and any other merchandise I could fit in too. As time went on though, the Sony PlayStation became more popular and that (along with adolescence) made my interest in Sega and Sonic wane throughout the late 1990s.
My interest was to be reignited during my last year of school. Sometime in 1999, we had a new computer centre built, which brought Internet to the masses of kids attending there. Soon enough, every kid had a floppy disk with Genecyst and a Sonic 2 ROM that they would play during lunch break whenever the admins weren’t looking. Seeing the game being enjoyed again (and playing it a heavy amount myself) kick-started my love for the games all over again.
I eventually came across a website called The Moogle Cavern (now dead). It appeared during a random Yahoo search for ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’, not expecting to find as many fan sites as I did. In its prime, the ‘MC’ was known for its mish-mash of Mario, Sonic, Squaresoft and other assorted franchise information. I quickly joined the forums and became a solid part of their community. Continue reading TSS Timeline: The Year 2000
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Yeah, so this one’s been sitting in the archives for a while. Originally recorded on 30th June 2006, Mark Kidley from RadioSEGA and myself sat down with the one and only Richard Jacques for a chat about his career, experience working on Sonic soundtracks and with Sonic Team and much more besides. This was to be used for the original Summer of Sonic event in 2006, but time flies when you’re all of a sudden organising a real life convention.
Even though this interview is two years old, it’s well worth a listen for any RJ fan, particularly as we were out of time during Summer of Sonic 2008 to ask him any pressing questions. Juicy tidbits such as Sonic R’s original work-in-progress name being Sonic TT, his role behind Video Games Live and what game fans pester him the most about. You can download it from the TSS Media Portal – link below.
Summer of Sonic 2006: Richard Jacques Interview (TSS Media Portal) – 10.1MB
Right click and select ‘Save As…’
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In light of a few random messages we’ve been getting over the last week, we thought we’d better clear up some of the confusion people are having. The Sonic Stadium used to be host to a news service called ‘Sonic News’. This service involved providing readers with the latest happenings in the Sonic universe by being unbiased, serious and generally governed with a rod up its bum. ‘Sonic News’ became the new word for ‘The Sonic Stadium’, as it was the main thing getting updated every now and then, so something was done to combat this (as it was, after all, getting annoying. There is a website accompanying the news service, you know).
We brought back the News area into The Sonic Stadium. So, as we stated in our very first introductory post since we relaunched last month, Sonic News does not exist anymore. It’s not here. You can’t find it. Not even playing Hide and Seek. It’s gone for good. All news will be relayed via The Sonic Stadium, and will provide the facts you need to know coupled with some entertaining writing and perhaps even some thoughtful/homourous opinion.
“Oh dear Svend, but a News site doesn’t apply opinion into their stories”. Quite right Sir/Madam, which is where you made your first mistake. The Sonic Stadium isn’t a news source. It’s a Sonic fansite. We write about Sonic because we are passionate about the series, we collect the games and merchandise, we watch the shows (even the piss poor ones like Underground). And further, we want to be a fansite that connects with you, another fan. If you don’t agree with our opinions, fine. But don’t get confused as to why we’re trying to be funny, or trying to pour some personality into a post to begin with.
We have different awesome writers with different opinions, making for a fruity bowl of Sonic fun. We could heavily edit some of our work to be a bit more ‘unbiased’ – I almost heavily edited the “Sonic and the Black Knight” article from last night. But you know what? What’s the point if fans can’t go a bit crazy sometimes and just tell it like it is? And if you don’t like it, why do you care?
This is, for all intents and purposes, a blog. Not a news site. If you wanted really serious, boringly-told stories with your seizure-inducing gaming session of Sonic Heroes, you shouldn’t be going to a fansite. You should be going to CNN. And you shouldn’t be playing Sonic Heroes.
We hear a lot of people were in fact confused about why the ‘News stories on Sonic News had gone downhill’, and I thought it best to explain why. This is not Sonic News, we have not gone downhill, we are writing to entertain and to inspire your mind. Or something. And if you didn’t read this, at least we’re covered just in case you’re Quexinos and want to complain that facts you provided to Sonic News in 2007 were sourced incorrectly (that’s why the post doesn’t exist anymore, Richard). Got it? Cool. Let’s rock.
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If your life has never been the same since TSS changed its new look, there may be a few reasons for that. One might be that you became rather attached to our Sonic News Ticker, which allowed external websites to link through to our news posts so your pages always stayed up to date.
Well fret no more about the ticker’s future, because we’ve brought it back. You can of course use our RSS Feed as an alternative – either click the huge orange button for our general RSS, subscribe to our specific News Feed or subscribe to our Feedburner. But for those who want to simply have that ticker scrolling along their page and have only News posts filtered through it, just copy and paste the following code:
<script type=”text/javascript” language=”Javascript” src=”http://www.sonicstadium.org/ticker.php”></script>
Business as usual. Take it away, Sam.
The Sonic Stadium may link to retailers and earn a small commission on purchases made from users who click those links. These links will only appear in articles related to the product, in an unobtrusive manner, and do not influence our editorial decisions in any way.
Welcome to The Sonic Stadium. Place looks a bit different doesn’t it? Yes, this is what we’ve been up to for the last couple of weeks – updating your favourite Sonic site to be a bit more ‘hip’ and ‘happening’. Whatever that means these days. Kids, tsch.
So why the change? Put simply, for the last two years, TSS has been a floundering Sonic ship – while we certainly worked hard to become one of the most popular fansites online, my university and other commitments over the years had put something of a hold on adding updates of any real worth to the site (having said that, we have been lucky in getting stuff like interviews with Yojiro Ogawa, Simon Jeffery and Lee Brotherton so we haven’t been sitting on our thumbs the whole time). There have also been many things I’ve wanted to post about Sonic but pretty much couldn’t due to the way the site was designed and how the front page was dealt and all that jazz.
We did have a new TSS code base in the making – you’ll probably have heard me going on about it for the last two years. That was a system B’man and I started working on from the ground up, but again, other commitments meant the thing was going nowhere, and as a result TSS suffered. A few months back I thought it was time to can the bespoke script we were making and just make do with a pre-packaged one and add our own bells and whistles to them. Continue reading TSS: A Whole New Approach
The Sonic Stadium may link to retailers and earn a small commission on purchases made from users who click those links. These links will only appear in articles related to the product, in an unobtrusive manner, and do not influence our editorial decisions in any way.
The Sonic Stadium will soon be host to a new Sonic the Hedgehog comic, due to release its first edition in Spring 2008. Here’s some information direct from the comic’s creators, Cleardream productions.
The comic is based primarily on the Sonic games, however it borrows elements from other continuities to create something fresh, exciting, and unique. The comic also aims to engage more mature readers and long term fans by portraying a more darker side to the Sonic universe as well as having a mature theme. Continue reading Sonic Adventures: TSSNET Comic Coming Soon
The Sonic Stadium may link to retailers and earn a small commission on purchases made from users who click those links. These links will only appear in articles related to the product, in an unobtrusive manner, and do not influence our editorial decisions in any way.
Sonic News – and as well, Sonic Stadium – is looking for a few passionate and dedicated writers to add to our team!
Applicants must be aware that they will be obligated to update our website with screenshots, videos, and information regarding new games as it is released – alternatively, Sonic News writers will be obligated to write articles regarding activity of SEGA as a company.
Think you’ve got what it takes? We’d like for applicants to be well versed in English, and have a track record for following SEGA in general, not just Sonic – good post history on the SSMB is a bonus, but it’s not required to apply. Applicants must, however, but a current member on our website and can not be banned from any of our sub-sites. Continue reading TSS is looking for dedicated, talented staff!
The Sonic Stadium may link to retailers and earn a small commission on purchases made from users who click those links. These links will only appear in articles related to the product, in an unobtrusive manner, and do not influence our editorial decisions in any way.
The Sonic Stadium and all its hosted sites suffered two more days of downtime, less than two days after the Sonic Site Awards opened for voting.
Earlier in the month, the recently released next-generation Sonic promotional video made available on the main site, caused a short downtime for overuse of bandwidth, as a result of it unexpectedly not being protected from hotlinking. Direct links on a multitude of sites and blogs resulted in 220 GigaBytes – over half of the Stadium’s quota – being transferred, of that one file alone. Continue reading Sonic Stadium Sites Hit By Bandwidth Problems
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The Sonic Kingdom, host to a number of Sonic fansites including SonicAnime.net, Sonic United and The Sonic Stadium, suffered a week of downtime, making all sites inaccessible.
The problems started early Wednesday 3rd August when problems with the hard drive brought the server offline. According to Sonic Kingdom’s administrator, the providers delayed installing a replacement hard drive to the extent that he decided to move Sonic Kingdom to a new host. All services are now available since being restored sometime Tuesday 9th.
As a result of the server downtime, all Sonic News feeds were also unavailable. This resulted in problems for all sites using the feeds, which may have ranged from missing news to error messages. Our apologies to anyone who was adversely affected by this. To combat possible problems in the future, Sonic News may implement a feed backup.
The Sonic Stadium may link to retailers and earn a small commission on purchases made from users who click those links. These links will only appear in articles related to the product, in an unobtrusive manner, and do not influence our editorial decisions in any way.
The Sonic Stadium’s annual awards ceremony, The Sonic Site Awards, has launched its website, with a brand new design and some promised new features. Official starting of the event will happen this Friday (15th July).
The event, which has grown to be one of the biggest attractions of the online Sonic world, will this year have its awards divided into categories. These categories neatly seperate the awards up so they are easier to take in, while providing more specialised ones. In association with Sonic Fan Games HQ and The Sonic Stadium’s close affiliation with the SAGE event, there is a “SFGHQ Category” that focuses on fangame commendation, for example. Continue reading The Sonic Site Awards 2005 Launches
The Sonic Stadium may link to retailers and earn a small commission on purchases made from users who click those links. These links will only appear in articles related to the product, in an unobtrusive manner, and do not influence our editorial decisions in any way.
In Australia, to celebrate Sonic’s 14th Birthday, the Australian Center for the Moving Image dedicated an exhibit for Sonic the Hedgehog, and the fanbase that surrounded it. The Sonic Stadium was invited for a special opening event, and we have obtained exclusive pictures and information on just what went down.
Our three TSS Reporters for the event, “julz_sega_bob”, “chibi_sonic” and Matt the Yak (of Sonic Vegemite fame) detail their discoveries and opinions on the SSMB Forums.
Julz commented on the Games Area of the exhibit, mentioning the profiling of fansites such as The Sonic Stadium and mutual chums The Green Hill Zone. “The movies contained clippings of someone going through the site, along with a narrative. It was quite hard to get the narrative in video, but from what I heard, it gave a pretty detailed description. It was accurate, showed main areas and didn’t babble off.” Continue reading ACMI: Sonic Exhibit Report
The Sonic Stadium may link to retailers and earn a small commission on purchases made from users who click those links. These links will only appear in articles related to the product, in an unobtrusive manner, and do not influence our editorial decisions in any way.
Australia is set to have a nice surprise come Sonic’s birthday – an official SEGA exhibit all about Sonic the Hedgehog! And leading fan website, The Sonic Stadium, is being profiled as an example of Sonic fan culture at the event.
The exhibit, taking place and organised by the Australian Center for the Moving Image (ACMI) will be the second ever video games event the establishment has held, and is fully supported by SEGA-Europe and THQ Australia, who distribute SEGA games in the land down under.
In an agreement between ACMI and The Sonic Stadium, video footage will be recorded of this website, with added voiceovers and information detailing what the site provides in context of fan culture, and displayed in a special section of the Sonic the Hedgehog exhibit. It will be accompanied by a text panel discussing the fan culture surrounding Sonic the Hedgehog, which mentions fangame development such as the popular ‘Neo Sonic Universe’.
Continue reading The Sonic Stadium in Official SEGA Exhibit
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Exciting news, guys. I have been approached by the Australian Center for the Moving Image (ACMI) in Melbourne, AU for permission to take movie footage of The Sonic Stadium. This website will then be profiled in a Sonic the Hedgehog exhibit they plan to launch in late June in their dedicated “Games Lab”.
Naturally, I’ve agreed. The ACMI’s Games Lab is a section of the Center dedicated to discussing Video Game Culture – basically, the fan culture phenomenon behind some of the biggest game characters. And obviously, because Sonic is such a loved game character, with thousands of fan material and sites on the web, the ACMI would like to highlight the culture behind the character.
They approached TSS because it encaptures all the aspects of online Sonic fandom, from games reporting to news, to fangames and to artwork and fan creation – and of course, discussion. At the exhibit you can expect a video of footage of The Sonic Stadium, with some voiceovers and information about the site, and how the fan community express themselves through Sonic (i.e. fangames, online radio). Expect TSS, SEGASonic Radio, the Sonic Site Awards and other minisites to be included in the footage.
Continue reading TSS at Official Sonic Exhibit!
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Last night, if you couldn’t reach SONIC NEWS for your latest information, log onto the SSMB for some chatter or load some pages from The Sonic Stadium properly, it was because something went awry behind the scenes that spun the whole site and network into server overload.
The cause was a piece of code that TSS administrators had been applying to a new version of the website, that promises smoother browsing, quicker navigation, support for SSMB members and a large emphasis on site-member interaction.
The bug has been fixed, as we apologise to all the visitors and SONIC NEWS feed visitors and webmasters who had any inconvenience caused by this blip. SONIC NEWS is now back in operation, and will continue its planned coverage of the E3 2005 event next week. The Sonic Stadium’s interactive revamp has not been affected, although for all those interested, a completion date has still not been finalised.
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As has been maniacally recorded by SSMB members across the world, The Sonic Stadium has entered the prestigious accolade of “come of age” Sonic sites by hitting that ever-elusive 1 Million Visitors mark. The actual occurance happened at 3pm or 4pm (depending on who you go by, or what timezone weirding thing you use – I always note things by GMT [UK Time] naturally), and had as many as 80 people logged into the SSMB at once all celebrating. ^_^ Thanks to everyone who’s supported, supporting, and will continue to support TSS and the Network simply by visiting our website and voting on those Toplists (;D).
I will be updating TSS’ History Section tomorrow, with details on the events, including an updated Timeline as well. May even get a little “Illegitimate” with the event and all.
But I DID promise something special today, sort-of to celebrate, sort-of because I had it lined up anyway, lol. XD This is another step of TSS’ great return to form this year: The Sonic Fan Club. You may have garnered some hints when I changed the “Creative Outlet” forum list to the namesake, and it is true that Biafra and I have been trying to sort out the section so that SSMB members can post their creations on TSS.
Continue reading The Sonic Stadium: 1 Million Hits + Update
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I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but The Sonic Stadium is getting DANGEROUSLY close to the 1 Million Visits mark. Lock up your doors and windows, protect your Sonic plushies. TSS, upon this very time and date of posting, has just under SIX HUNDRED Visits left to do. I think it will happen later this afternoon. Keep your eyes on that ticker. We have a surprise lined up for you today as well, so it’s just as well we have the 1M mark today as well innit?
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Ah, April Fools Day. Yesterday was really something for the Sonic Community, as almost every site joined into the festivities. But trust The Sonic Stadium to come up with the best April Fools prank on the 1st – remember on TSS we announced “something big”? Well, we pretended that we were ahead of schedule on our announced Sonic Smash Cards and launched it on April 1st. Check it out here: http://www.sonicstadium.org/ssc/.
Looking at it now, it seems very convincing, until you see the “April Fool” error. There were different ‘honest’ errors every hour or so until we broke that error to the SSMB members at 8pm GMT. We fooled everyone, despite some front from members saying they plugged it beforehand. Check out the activity here, and the explanation for our prank here. We kick ass.
Continue reading April Foolish
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OK, first of all… APRIL FOOL!
Second of all, some clarification. THE WHOLE LAUNCH OF SONIC SMASH CARDS TODAY WAS A HOAX. THE SMASH CARDS THEMSELVES ARE STILL GOING TO BE MADE. The page is a PHP page, sure, but the design is mostly static. The header “User Bar” (Blue bar saying ‘Sonic Smash Cards’, ‘Forums’, etc) is static, you should try going there when NOT logged in ;). The cards are hoaxes, in fact I left the tiniest clue – check the Card Numbers on each of the five cards (in the top right corner of each card).
Third of all, a Disclaimer. The ways of the Internet means that the 12noon rule so implied with normal April Fools has been null and void online. However, a good concept of _international_ time is always good. For example, right now would not be a good time to try and April Fool someone. However, the time we began ours (3pm GMT) is not so bad. So you can let us off for that one, Prometheus.
Continue reading April Fools: Explanations and Clarifications
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How’s it going guys? A big update today, as I said yesterday. First off, Sonic Kid sent us a huge bunch of scans and the Sonic X French Theme, so you can view and download all those things. It’s called for a new section for the Comics Zone called Foreign Comics. The Sonic X Theme can be found in the Sonic X section. Flare Gamer who is constructing a cool site asked me for an interview a few weeks back, and you can read the transcript here if you got nothing better to do. AND, there was also the TSS Timeline update made yesterday, which has a complete psychological history of TSS during 2004 up till this present day. For more updates, check out TSS’ front page, under “Latest Updates”.
But for more exciting things, looking ahead now! The Sonic Stadium will be FIVE YEARS OLD in October. October 24th to be exact. And what does a major Sonic site need to make its existence complete? Why, the legendary 1 MILLION VISIT count of course. If you check the Site Meter for The Sonic Stadium you can see that we are close to the 1M mark. Granted, it’s a fair way off, but it’s worth shouting about, even this early. 903,500 unique visitors have entered TSS since October 24th, 2000 (on last count; today at 8:22pm GMT). At this rate we’ll be hitting that target in a month or two! Exciting. 😀 Anyway, enjoy those updates.
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You know, it feels so good to be able to find time to update my site once again. ^_^ This is the third update I’ve made in four days, and it feels great to be finally updating everything that has been submitted as far back as August ’04 (again, sorry for those who submitted stuff and had to wait so long! o_o).
At time of writing, today’s update is rather niche. I’m attempting to bring the Archie Sonic Comics section bang up to date, and that’s rather hard, not living in America and all. 😛 Rally the Cheetah’s being a superstar with her submissions, and today’s scans include front covers for the last few months, plus some Sonic Specials, AND covers for not only Issue 0, but an alternate Issues 1, 2 and 3. These aren’t the Issues 1, 2 and 3 you know from July ’93 onwards, these were Issues of Archie that began a few months before then. After some digging for more info and scans, we should have information on them.
Continue reading Told ya there was more…
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I went into GAME the other day, foolishly thinking it was 4th February (Sonic Mega Collection +‘s release date). But still, I got a free T-Shirt out of pre-ordering there. AND, I got to meet a great gal working there. We were talking about Sonic for ages, and it was great. A shout to to her, BTW. Anyway, there goes my big boycott of GAME, well and truly buggered.
But it’s not all bad news. Apparently, according to some rather misinformed people, the news that OUR Sonic News section provides to TSSZNews is apparently the only thing keeping TSS alive. Also, The Sonic Stadium is dull, without personality, and has no substance or information at all whatsoever . I’m sure you all feel the same right, clicking those links and actually knowing that TSS is the biggest information resource for Sonic the Hedgehog, with the most intellectual and fun-loving community alive. 😉 Still, it doesn’t really matter, those doomsayers keep coming back to TSS all the time to check our information and downloads, so we must be doing something right. Continue reading “Dull, Without Substance”, yet oh so good. TSS.
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Got a press release from SEGA today – TakeTwo Interactive has effectively bought out Visual Concepts and Kush Games. For those that don’t really care or know (that’s everyone outside of America, then), they are the SEGA divisions that brought us the Sports 2K Series. The acquisition will see SEGA no longer owning the developer’s rights to these games. TakeTwo and SEGA are also apparently going to work together to bring Visual Concepts games to arcades – be it Sports 2K or something else we dunno. Finally, the agreement will apparently include SEGA publishing and distributing the 2K series in Japan and Asia. I’ll post the whole press kaboodle on the SSMB later. Continue reading li3k, an UpDat!
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Just a quick update, the TSS Competition’s over and done with. Winners have been picked! Congrats to the winners and well done and thanks to all those peeps who have taken part and entered. The response was great, but slightly timid, which could be applied to the amount of effort needed to do to enter – usually something I don’t do, but I thought it’d be fun to do something elaborate, y’know?
Competition 1: Where you had to take pictures of you celebrating TSS one way or another.
Top Prize: Psychobob
Runner-up: Sonic Neo
Booby Prize: Flash2000
Competition 2: The Voice Impression contest.
Top Prize: Melody (Cream)
Runner-up: Flash2000 (Big)
Booby Prize: Adam Riza (Tails/Chaotix) Continue reading TSS Compo Winners, New SSMB Skin
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Happy Birthday to The Sonic Stadium! Festivities kicked off last night, as the Sonic Site Awards Ceremony was broadcast live, while the Sonic Top 8 Awards followed. We had such a great turnout, it was really buzzing last night. I’d like to thank all those that attended and had a great time with us. It’s not over though – TSS is about to make a HUGE update, with a massive SUPER Sonic Scansday! And, MAKE SURE YOU TAKE PART IN OUR COMPETITION! Yeah, we have a real competition, with REAL PRIZES. Take a look, and enter; you have about three weeks to send your entries to me. Fancy winning a Sonic game, the new Sonic Underground DVD Boxset maybe? Or perhaps you’ve always wanted the Sonic X Original Soundtrack? Well, take part, we got them all up for grabs baby! Who says we don’t treat you right? Stay tuned to TSS!
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Yep, the Sonic Site Awards 2004 Ceremony will be kicking off in less than 8 hours!
5:00pm GMT is the ‘GO’ time for when TSS officially begins it’s fourth anniversary!
A quick round-up of what is to come today, tomorrow, and during the rest of next week (TSS’ Birthday + Half Term = Longer Celebration Period :D).
Yesterday:
– SSMB Revamps with special TSS Default Skin.
Today:
– Sonic Site Awards Ceremony 2004: Hosted by Dreadknux & Roareye
– The SSA Ceremony will also kick-start a brand new series of “The Sonic Hour”
– Straight after the SSA Ceremony, is SpawnofSonic and the Sonic Top 8! [*]
– SEGASonic Radio officially merges it’s 24/7 and LiVECAST stations into one.
– =TSS= opens ‘Events’ Page on the main site as a guide to what’s happening.
– =TSS= Launches the Activities…
So, what ARE the activities? Well, you can be the VERY first to know the details!
Continue reading Sonic Site Awards Ceremony 2004 – Today
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