Fans celebrate 30 years of Sonic the Hedgehog in community spotlight video – Hey, there’s us!

SEGA has released a 30+ minute video celebrating Sonic the Hedgehog’s 30th anniversary by spotlighting those in the fan community who have a passion for and, in many cases, contributed to the legacy of the character through events, interviews, videos and more. At 12 minutes and 20 seconds, yours truly appears sharing memories of Sonic and looking ahead to the future. Also featured, at 33 minutes and 38 seconds, is SEGAbits contributor and longtime community member Kori-Maru. Check the video out for yourself, and after the break you can see the fullscreen video of our own contribution.

Thank you to SEGA for highlighting the community and fan sites and please, please do more of this stuff!

LIVE: SEGAbits’ presents Sonic & SEGA Fan Jam 2014

Welcome to the Fan Jam Zone! Kori here bringing you our first fan convention and the first SEGA related fan event in the US live featuring Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, Hatsune Miku Project Diva F 2nd, and Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax.

We’ll be streaming several events during Fan Jam such as fan films, classic SEGA franchises, tournaments, cosplay, and interviews with Tracy Yardley of Archie Comics and Matt the owner of Tails Channel. The stream will begin from 9AM to 6PM EST. Don’t miss it!

Question for the SEGA Fan Community: What is the most positive and effective way to ask for Shenmue 3?

Shenmue3
 
Over the weekend a group of Shenmue fans came across an article I wrote over two years ago. In the article, I named five things I believed SEGA fans should stop doing, and one of these things was spamming SEGA’s Facebook page for titles like Shenmue 3. I love the Shenmue franchise and consider myself to be a huge fan. I read and reread every Shenmue article I could get my hands on in anticipation of the first game’s release, and bought it on day one. When the sequel was announced to be only available in Europe and Japan, with US fans having to wait nearly a year for an Xbox port, I learned how to play imported games and bought the European version on the week of release. Since then, I’ve debated with fans over what a third title would contain, bought Shenmue merch whenever the chance arrived, and even joined in on the infamous mass capsule toy mailings.

Community fundraiser: Help us raise some money in memory of a young fan

Earlier this year, SEGA and Sonic fans heard the sad news of a four year old Sonic fan who lost his life in an unfortunate accident while on holiday. The boy, Dylan Cecil, was such a big Sonic fan that the family had a Sonic casket and flower arrangements made for the boy. Really heartbreaking stuff. Members of the Sonic and SEGA community, from Sonic Retro to Sonic Stadium, knew something had to be done to help the family. AAUK of Sonic Wrecks, with the support of SEGA of America and several fan sites, has created a series of eBay listings featuring rare and unique Sonic items. All profits will go towards the Burnham Area Rescue Boat fund at the request of the Cecil family. Fans who do not want to bid, but still want to help, can donate on the BARB website directly.

Items include a rare Sonic Generations press kit, t-shirts and Generations gold Sonic rings. There are currently ten items up but there will be more additions in time.

You can find a summary of goods on the SSMB Marketplace whilst the items themselves are on sale here: http://www.ebay.co.uk – Seller: Kevskingdom

Aaron Webber: Say My Name, Say My Name

To thank those who bought multiple versions of Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1, Ken Balough (Digital Brand Manager, Sonic 4) and Aaron Webber (Community Manager, Sonic 4) issued a little thank you video. As a nice surprise, they revealed that the public thanking would not be limited to those who bought three or more versions of the game. Instead, they would thank every single person who put their name into True Blue initiative. At 1:35 you’ll see and hear Aaron Webber saying my name as he looks deeply into the camera. No doubt hoping that I heard his thanks. Well Aaron, your thanks has been heard. And in return I say: thank you too!

Forum member gets hands on with Shenmue City

Our forum upsidedown fuji has been playing Shenmue City since it launched yesterday. Yes, the lucky, sexy bastard lives in Japan and can take advantage of Japan virtues like living in the same island as Yu Suzuki and playing his games. While the rest of us hit F5 on the YS NET website waiting for Western announcements.

Enough of my bitter attitude, if you want to read his thoughts on the social game, click here.  Don’t be scared of signing up for an account, we don’t bite. Who knows, could save your life.

Weekend reading: SEGA games underrated and overlooked?


Another week and another time for me to show you some good stories I read around the interwebs, today I give you two list that list SEGA’s games as ‘underrated’ or ‘overlooked’. Isn’t that odd? Especially considering that the ‘underrated’ list has games that rated rather well, like Demon’s Souls did better with critics than Final Fantasy XIII (as did Valkyria Chronicles).

If you’re an American, enjoy 4th of July, which is today (look at the post date). Get drink, come on SEGAbits and click random links. Please, don’t forget to leave a drunken message, you know how much we love those.

Weekend reading: Eggman a lame boss?


I read a ton of stuff online, mostly video game related articles and I never post my favorites. I will try to start highlighting some intresting stuff I read on the internet.

What interesting posts have you guys read around the interwebs?

Sonic 4 news blowout coming

What are you doing on Thursday the 20th May? You don’t know yet? Well I do! You’ll be sitting at your computer frantically slamming the refresh button waiting for a sniff of Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1 related news, just like the rest of us.

Why? Well apparently Sonic Stadium and Sonic Retro will have a joined exclusive community press release with some ‘big’ and ‘good’ news regarding this controversial Sonic game!

Community Review: Bayonetta

This is one of our first ‘community reviews’, basically someone from our community does a review for a SEGA game. This time it was long time member (well, as long as we have been around) SEGA Uranus. He was also on this weeks podcast, which should be up later tonight.

Hit the jump to read SEGA Uranus’ Bayonetta review…