Classic SEGA Magazine Corner: SEGA Visions introduces us to Sonic 20 years ago

Oh snap, is this magazine already 20 years old? SEGA Visions magazine was the first official magazine of SEGA of America. It was launched to compete against Nintendo Power. It was actually free for a year if you owned a SEGA console. Not bad, not bad at all.

In this issue we will be looking at SEGA of America talking a bit about their new hero, Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s so odd reading their description of what Sonic is like, since we have known him for 20 years.

The other scans show SEGA’s Game Gear US launch and profiles of people that used to work at SEGA… 20 years ago. Interesting indeed.

This is actually a really short read. You’d expect a much longer article for something that was featured on the cover of the magazine. Regardless, this basically tells you what Sonic is. A blue hedgehog that runs super fast and never gives up.

It seems that SEGA has kept up with what they created 20 years ago. If you think about it, Sonic has always been about not giving up in the face of a huge challenge.

Damn, I can’t believe it’s been 20 years. I feel old.

Here is a writeup of the SEGA launch event for the Game Gear in the US. It seems like it had quite the turnout for its time: it attracted around 600 attendees.

SEGA launched the new portable in New York Harbor, in style. A helicopter landed… carrying the first Game Gear with it. Isn’t that exciting? Obviously, it wasn’t the first Game Gear in the US, but it was a nice way to hype up the audience.

The second page is a writeup for “Superstar Kids Challenge” a show that SEGA filmed with Universal Studios. I have actually never seen this show, but according to the magazine it has celebrities doing athletic competitions to win money for charity. SEGA had a ‘Game Gear duel’ challenge in the show.

Also pictured there is (at the time) SEGA of America CEO Tom Kalinske.

Above are profiles of some of SEGA of America’s workers back in the day. It’s funny that most of the profiles read like those of most SEGA fans. I see a big interest in animation and also anime.

I wonder if any of them still work at SEGA or in the video game industry? Who knows.

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2 responses to “Classic SEGA Magazine Corner: SEGA Visions introduces us to Sonic 20 years ago

  1. Shigs says:

    OMG! I totally had that magazine! I even had the issue that had the first Sonic comic #0 which would later be the British Sonic comic.

  2. Centrale says:

    I still have most of the early issues of Visions, as well as its predecessor, Sega Challenge.

    By the way, this is a good opportunity to point out that the Sega logo within the Segabits logo is not exactly correct. The S and the A in particular are different.

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