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Text | Curious anecdotes
Editors | Curious Facts |
Sonic (is a famous video game character created by SEGA Games) who is a blue hedgehog. The creation of Sonic began in the late 80s of the 20th century and was born to compete with the Mario character of Nintendo. Sonic's creative history has undergone many changes and developments, constantly improving and improving, and finally becoming an important character and brand in the history of games.
01
The origin of Sonic
In the late 1980s, SEGA competed with Nintendo in the console market, during which time SEGA wanted to develop a video game character with superpowers to compete with Nintendo's Mario. So SEGA embarked on a project to create a different video game character than Mario, which is the origin of Sonic.
In SEGA's plan, Sonic was designed as a blue hedgehog with super running speed and reaction speed. Sonic's image was created by Tetsuya Komiya Omiya, a game designer at SEGA Corporation, who was inspired by the toys and competition games he loved to play as a child.
It is also inspired by other classic characters such as Mickey Mouse and Rabbit Ragdoll. When designing Sonic, Tetsuya Komiya also took advantage of the characteristics of console technology at the time to create unique gameplay such as Sonic's high-speed running and spinning attacks.
In 1989, SEGA officially released the first Sonic game title, Sonic the Hedgehog, and the Sonic character in the game immediately received widespread recognition and praise. Sonic's game features and image are considered to be a new game style and culture, and have also become SEGA's game representative and brand.
02
Sonic's history
Since the release of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1989, Sonic's game series has undergone several updates and improvements, and as the creative team delved into and explored deeply, they finally developed a complete design for the character, including details such as appearance, skills, and personality.
The character was eventually named "Sonic", a blue hedgehog wearing red shoes, with supersonic running abilities, and a very expressive personality.
In the game, Sonic's mission is to save his friends, especially the critters, who have been captured by evil forces and transformed into evil robots. Players need to help Sonic run, jump, attack enemies and dodge obstacles, free his friends, and ultimately defeat the game's villain, the evil Dr. Egg.
On June 23, 1991, the first Sonic game was released in North America. The game's success far exceeded the creative team's expectations. It quickly became a global hit and became one of the hottest games in gaming at the time. Sonic's success is not only due to its unique character design and gameplay, but also to its excellent graphics and sound effects, as well as interesting level design.
With the success of Sonic, it quickly became one of Sega's masterpieces. It has not only launched multiple sequels on handheld and home consoles, but also carried on multiple game consoles of Sega, including game consoles, handhelds and mobile phones.
In addition, Sonic has also become a cross-media brand. Over the next few decades, Sonic landed in animation, comics, toys, clothing, and more. In 1993, Sonic's animated TV series "Sonic Kid" was first broadcast, and the success of this animation made Sonic more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Since then, a number of sonic-themed anime, movies, and TV series have been released.
03
Sonic and Mario's business war
The birth of Sonic brought a new and unforgettable character to the gaming world. It not only created a new game brand, but also changed the landscape of the gaming industry and ushered in a new era of gaming. He has achieved great success worldwide. With faster speeds, better graphics, and smoother gameplay, Sonic appeals to a large number of players, especially those who like action games.
In the 90s, Sonic and Mario became rivals and engaged in a fierce business war. The competition between the two brands is not only a competition for games, but also a competition for game consoles. At the time, companies that mastered the console market were able to make huge profits.
At first, Mario took the lead in the console market. Nintendo's NES and SNES consoles are selling happily, and the Mario series of games is also very popular. However, with the launch of the new generation of consoles, Sony also decided to enter the console market, launching the PlayStation console.
The business war between Nintendo and Sony also gradually escalated. In 1994, Sony launched their own console, the PlayStation. The PlayStation can play games in CD format, which Nintendo's SNES cannot. Nintendo tried to fight back by introducing new technology and hardware, such as the Virtual Boy virtual reality console they released in 1995, but sales of this console were not ideal and were quickly eliminated from the market.
In this case, Nintendo began to work on the Mario series in an attempt to get it back into the market. In 1996, Nintendo introduced Mario 64, the first Mario game in full 3D. This game takes the Mario series to a whole new level, it uses a new console technology that allows players to freely explore the environment, climb walls, jump, swim, and much more in a way that previous Mario games could not do.
Mario 64 also became one of the most popular games at the time, a success that inspired Nintendo to continue to develop the Mario series and launch many other Mario games for Super Nintendo, including Mario Kart and Mario Soccer. These games were hugely successful in the gaming market and helped Nintendo reshape their position in the gaming industry.
Although the Mario series and the Sonic series are fiercely competitive in the business war, they also promote each other's development to some extent. For example, the Sonic series also began to adopt 3D game technology, launching games such as "Sonic Adventure" and "Sonic Heroes". These games have been well received by players, proving that 3D games are also viable in the Sonic series.
The launch of PlayStation was a major challenge for the Nintendo and Mario franchises. PlayStation consoles have more graphics power than SNES, game graphics are more detailed, and PlayStation consoles are cheaper than N64. This allowed Sony to achieve great success in a short period of time, becoming a leader in the console market.
In response to Sony's challenge, Nintendo decided to launch a new console, the N64, and continue to publish the Mario series. The graphics processing power of the N64 console is more powerful than that of the PlayStation, and at the same time, Nintendo has also begun to use 3D technology to make Mario series games, launching games such as "Mario 64". These games also achieved high ratings in the game market at that time.
In the business war between Mario and Sonic, Nintendo and Sony each have their own advantages and disadvantages. Nintendo has a strong gaming brand and its own consoles, but the higher price of consoles limits the purchasing power of some players.
Sony, on the other hand, has launched a more affordable game console, with more detailed picture quality and powerful game production capabilities. However, Sony does not have its own game brand and needs to rely on third-party game developers to provide games, which makes Sony inferior to Nintendo in terms of game branding.
In the business battle between Sonic and Mario, Mario finally wins. This is mainly due to the popularity of the Mario series of games, as well as Nintendo's professional ability and market influence. Although Sonic's creators also had some ideas and ideas, Nintendo has a stronger game development team and more experience in game development.
In addition, the success of the Mario series of games lies not only in its gameplay, but also in its brand image and wide market recognition. Mario has become a cultural symbol and a universally accepted representative character. Although Sonic is not inferior to Mario in terms of gameplay, its image and market recognition have not reached the same height.
In the end, Mario's success lies not only in the game itself, but also in the depth of its brand image and market recognition. These factors make the Mario series one of the best-selling games in the world, as well as one of Nintendo's most valuable intellectual property.
04
What did Sonic's appearance bring to Mario
The appearance of Sonic had a positive impact on the Mario series of games, first of all, the appearance of Sonic inspired the innovation and improvement of the Mario series of games. The Sonic series of games uses different game mechanics and character designs than Mario, such as actions such as running and sliding at high speed, and featuring brown hedgehogs.
These new game elements inspired the Mario development team to drive continuous improvement and upgrades in the Mario series of games, making the game fun and attractive. Secondly, the emergence of Sonic expanded the scope of the gaming market. Under Sonic's leadership, players began to become interested in games that were different from the Mario series.
This promotes the diversification and enrichment of the gaming market. At the same time, the emergence of Sonic also promoted the competition of game hardware and technology, promoted the rapid development and progress of the game industry, and the emergence of Sonic deepened the importance of game characters and brand image.
Sonic's success shows that the image and personality of the game's characters are decisive for the game's success. This prompted the Mario series of games to pay more attention to character design and brand image construction, and strengthened the market position and competitiveness of the game brand.
In summary, the emergence of Sonic has had a positive impact on the Mario series of games, promoting the progress and development of the game industry, and also promoting the diversification and competition of the game market.
05
Who is the inventor of Sonic? How it was invented
Sonic's inventors are Hideo Kojima, a game designer at the Japanese game company SEGA, musician Masato Nakamura, and game producer Satoshi Iwata. According to Satoshi Iwata, at the time SEGA wanted to develop a new game, and he and his team members spent a long time researching and exploring.
In constant experimentation and exploration, they finalized a character design for a game called "Needlemouse," which was later named "Sonic the Hedgehog."
In order to design a work different from the popular Nintendo Mario series of games at the time, Hideo Kojima and other designer teams designed the game character as a hedgehog to replace the common human character at the time. Masato Nakamura designed wonderful music for the game to make the game more lively and interesting. Iwata, on the other hand, was responsible for developing the game engine, polishing the game controls and level design.
Hideo Kojima and others use a technique called "bitmap scrolling" to scroll the scenes and characters in the game horizontally, so that the player feels that the character is running fast, increasing the speed and movement of the game.
Finally, Hideo Kojima and others launched the first Sonic game "Sonic the Hedgehog" in 1991, which became one of the most popular and successful games of the year, won the love and popularity of many players around the world, and became one of SEGA's most successful game series.
This series of games has been widely recognized and loved around the world, not only in the game industry, but also spawned a large number of related products including comics, movies, toys and so on.