Sonic Celebrates His 20th Birthday
Simon Williams January 5, 2011 - 12:32 pm
In news that is liable to make a certain generation of gamers feel very old, Sega have announced that Sonic the Hedgehog will be celebrating his 20th birthday on the 23rd of June, 2011.
The blue spiky one first burst into the gaming consciousness way back in 1991 with his self-titled debut game on the Sega Mega Drive (the Genesis to our North American cousins), and since then has shifted over 70 million games on a variety of formats.
Sonic’s popularity as an “edgy” gaming icon – deliberately opposed to the family friendly image of Nintendo at the time – reached such levels in the early ’90s that he even starred in his own animated television show, as well as gracing a bewildering variety of merchandising.
However, it’s not all been smooth sailing for Sonic through the last two decades, which witnessed Sega forced to drop out of the console hardware market and reinvent itself as a third-party publisher after the Dreamcast, while Sonic himself has appeared in games that even Sega considered so sub-par that they removed them from sale.
Still, 20 years in as fast moving a market as the gaming world is not an achievement to be sniffed at, and Sega will be organising a series of events around the world to mark the momentous occasion.
Mr. Hedgehog – we salute you!
