How the Media Exploit Your Views

'Sonic Heroes' - the new great.

Early 2004, Sonic the Hedgehog returned to the console market after 4 years with no brand-new game. This game is now a classic, one of the greatest games in living memory. Last month alone Sonic titles shifted over 3 million copies in one country last month. The game is a true hit and has been produced and delivered on all 3 major games consoles and PC market.

Not to mention that on all 3 consoles that game has gone in to their line of their most popular and marketable games (the Players Choice, Platinum and Classics range)

Not to mention this, but in a recent survey in to gaming characters taken by the British people, the National Gaming Awards saw Sonic awarded the 'Icon of the Decade' title. Sonic the Hedgehog has also recently been awarded a start on the gaming worlds parallel to the Hollywood walk of fame, the Sony Walk of Game. He is one of few gaming characters that has made it to the walk.

Truly the revival of the sonic craze is of a direct link to this brilliant game. In fact out to the people polled on www.stconline.co.uk, over 70% of people agreed that Sonic Heroes had managed to revive the iconic character of the 90’s, not to mention that more then 90% of that group admitted that they own Sonic Heroes. In fact, in discussion about the game, only 4 people said they did not own that game, the topic itself had 5871 views on it since it was set up.

As well as this a standard search on the Internet for Sonic Heroes pulls up 1,540,000 pages. Not to mention that in recent interviews, the creator of the Sonic games confirmed two new Sonic games.

This shows just how much of a success Sonic Heroes must have been, within one year a company that many had claimed were soon to be out of business have managed to sell millions of copies of their Sonic titles a month and are developing two new games with their earnings, Sonic Heroes must have been a great game for them to be entrusting the success of their company to the blue hedgehog. But with fame circling him like it is now, Sonic has proved himself the new great.
Sonic Heroes therefore must be a brilliant game that has no equal in the gaming market today.

Sonic Heroes - the game that darned Sega.

Back in the 1990’s Sonic was the untouchable character. The most famous face in the gaming world, now he is the laughing stock of it. The recent Sonic Heroes was a big disappoint meaning disappointing fans everywhere. The San Francisco Business Times reports just how badly things are going for Sega after the launch of Sonic Heroes: “Net income was $33 million for the nine months ended Dec. 31 -- less than half the net income during that period in 2003."

Game gets tougher.
Meanwhile, the video game industry as a whole is humming.

Price*water*house*Coopers predicts the U.S. market will generate $15.3 billion in sales by 2008.”
Sega, formally the games leader, is left on the outside as a failing company, in fact 70% of old Sega games fans from www.stconline.co.uk claimed they didn’t like the games, and only 2 people on the site tried to claim that it was the best Sonic game ever, in fact in a poll on the same site about the world's best game, not one put forward Sonic Heroes as the choice, bearing in mind this is the first new Sonic game on consoles for 4 years, and that this website is a Sonic related site, this seems to show just how bad the games were, in fact sale figures in America show the same thing. 139,698 copies of Sonic Heroes were sold in America for the GameCube in January, a country of 650 million people. Not only that to the Sonic game, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, was released back in 2002, and was just the re-release of the 2001 games Sonic Adventure 2. However that still managed to do much better on the same console over the same period, shifting 1,086,853 copies.

An article also said this to Sega recently:
"Sega, creator of beloved cartoon Sonic the Hedgehog, has been struggling to reinvent itself since quitting the console game in 2001. Last year was a particularly trying one for San Francisco-based Sega of America -- its Japanese parent company was acquired; it released no new hits and sold its popular sports business to a rival."

In fact from it’s starting price of going towards £40, Sonic Heroes price has been slashed to £20 rrp, with many shops selling it cheaper. Sega knows that Sonic the Hedgehog is the most marketable character and to avoid going under, will have to rely on that character again, however in a recent interview with the games creator on the subject of a new Sonic game he commented: