Sonic - Sega's Answer To A Video Game Icon
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by: SharkysGames
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What would life be like without a bit of rivalry, Coke VS Pepsi or Burger King VS McDonald, Sega VS Nintendo? Back in the 80's Mario appeared in the hugely successful Atari game Donkey Kong. He as a carpenter whose name in the game was Jump Man. But due to the huge success of the game, Mario became Mario the Plumber. Soon Nintendo paired Mario up with a brother named Luigi. The video game series was called Super Mario Brothers. These games were widely successful.
As Mario's popularity soared, Sega decided they needed to have a mascot to rival what Nintendo had in Mario. They put together a team to create such a character to replace the Alex Kidd mascot they already had. The team put together a character called Sonic the Hedgehog. The battle of the gaming console mascots was officially on. In 1991, Sonic's first game was released Sonic the Hedgehog and it did very well.
Since day one there was a need to top what Nintendo did with Mario. At this time image was everything and video game consoles were popping up all over. So the race to be the best started. Many people wonder what made Sega and Nintendo rivals in mascots. The answer is simple, gaming consoles like Playstation and Xbox did not have mascots that they used to bring in sales. Nintendo had Mario and the Sega Company decided to throw their hat in the ring and come up with an icon of their own.
They more than succeeded, Sega made more money than they may have anticipated and Nintendo took the bait and began to use Mario in different areas, he wasn't just an action hero of sorts he played sport and drove go karts. More than anything Sega wanted to be more known and sell more games than Nintendo and they did just that with the creation of an icon, Sonic.
Each company tried to improve their characters powers or their features. Mario was put out there in the merchandise market and was promoted very heavily and they started to become number 1 but Sega answered back with their own merchandise line.
In 2001, Sega had created a third party agreement; this allowed Sonic to appear on other video gaming systems such as Nintendo. Some say since then, the rivalry between Mario and Sonic ended. But others don't believe that, in fact Sega and Nintendo came out with a game called Mario and Sonic at the Olympics. Players can choose to be Team Mario or Team Sonic once again trying to juice up some of that rivalry.
Sonic still remains a huge gaming Icon, as does Mario. But Sega certainly did their job when they created Sonic and soon became a leader in the gaming industry, you could not turn around without seeing Sega Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic was and still is an Icon and will always be remembered as such.
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