SEGA launches the Sonic 2020 project, promises to release Sonic news on the 20th of every month

Sonic's birthday as you truly imagined it.

 

I regret complaining about announcements of announcements. We desperately need an announcement of an announcement right about now.

 

I don't know why I'm surprised the full 30 minute Sega slot was a no commentary playthrough of a Catherine port.

 

Nah, I still hate the tease. I'm just going to go back to not holding my breath for it and let it be a surprise when it happens. I will admit though, that today was a bit irksome because of the timing of it all. I wish that they outright stated that Sonic would not make an appearance here (though if they did, some people wouldn't have tuned in, but I digress).

 

Does it bother anyone else that his birthday is celebrated based on the game release and not when he would have realistically been born?

Hes 15 in the original game right? So you’d work off that. Which means he was born in 1976. They should have given at least a month or season as a reference.

Comics and cartoons are different. Don’t remember off the top of my head but going off the first game makes the most sense for an original source.

 

Fictional characters aren't treated that way. Mickey Mouse premiered in 1928, Bugs Bunny in 1940. Their birthdays go off those years, even though they were obviously adults in those cartoons.

Plus, cartoons generally don't age. Sonic was 15 in Sonic 1, from 1991. He was also 15 in Sonic Adventure 2, from 2001, and in Generations, from 2011, and in Mania, from 2017. Just because time passed for us, doesn't mean it seems to pass for them.

 

Yeah, Sonic definitely has a floating timeline.

 

I know he’s remained the same throughout and it’s the same for most characters. That’s perfectly fine or else they’d lose the element of being timeless.

I just think since they decided to give him an age they obviously wanted us to know what point of life he’s supposed to be in. Giving a date would have added to his lore.

 

Clearly, all the Sonic games take place within, like, a year and a half

(I always found it really funny in long-running series like Sonic where the games would make it seem like they happen, like, days after each other and the main characters just apparently never can catch a break)

 

Well it was his birthday in Generations, at least 1 year has passed :v

 

Sonic's not going to realistically age from when he came out to now. He's forever 15. Using the day the game came out as his Birthday works better too because it allows them to celebrate his birthday and the day the first game came out as well.

 

I know. I don’t think he should realistically age. I just think giving him an actual in-universe birthday would have been more unique. It adds to his backstory and some fans would even “share” the same birthday.

 

Honestly if I were in charge, I would make in in-universe b-day 6/23. Then people would only have to remember one.

 

Dates aren't mentioned in the games though. That's part of the point of a floating timeline. We get non-specific periods of time mentioned, like the Ark being shut down 50 years ago or Eggman locking up Sonic on the Death Egg for 6 months, but the relative point in time is never specified.

 

And this is exactly how it should be. It doesn't make any sense to give Sonic a fictional birthday. Sega and Sonic Team have no reason to celebrate a random fictional birthday. Calling the anniversary a "birthday" is just figurative. Sonic was "born" to the world in 1991.

 

Bugs Bunny, to me at least, began in '38 as Happy Rabbit. Although, technically not Bugs till A Wild Hare, I seem to remember it being revealed a while back through some old Happy Rabbit character sheets from the late '30s that the name Bugs Bunny was already in consideration. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember reading all about that in the Cartoon Research group I'm in on FB some time back. Which contradicts the official version of events and makes Bugs a bit older, even by name, although not officially. Or something similar. But I grew up with Happy Rabbit, too, and he most certainly is a prototype Bugs. Not that this adds anything to this conversation but I love the history of these things.

 

Birthday dates of ficcional characters might work depending on which media they exist in. Manga characters usually have these informations available, because it fits. But Sonic is too cartoony fot that.

 

I’m not sure how we got on to this topic!

Some characters in story-driven media are assigned birthdays to world build or advance the plot. Video game mascot characters are not, because they are in games intended to spawn franchises that that might last years without the characters ageing. It makes much more sense to assign the games / starring characters a birthday based on the release date, which is actually a real event directly related to the game.

There are characters who have birthdays which are not mentioned because they’re not important. Robotnik’s is the same as Sonic’s. Tails’ is the release date of Sonic 2, etc. The reason why people only focus on Sonic’s is because that’s the initial date of the character and franchise so it makes sense.

Nintendo do the same for Mario, though I don’t think they actually know a exact date so they just celebrate a year, and I don’t believe they include his years as ‘Jumpman’ either.

It doesn’t really have anything to do with how cartoony they are. I bet if I google’d it I’d find a bunch of cartoon character birthdays...

Back on topic as I’m not sure what else anyone can say on the matter;

I don’t know why I expected anything of SEGA for the day. I wasn’t expecting a teaser for a new game but I was hoping for some cool news or merch. Would it kill them to re-release the Nendroid more widely? They could make a killing off Sonic if they marketed the franchise correctly and worked around fan anticipation. There’s not even been any news on the GG Micro coming to the west and they pretty much only service Japan which is odd considering Sonic and the MegaDrive were and still are far less popular there.

 

Anyone have a list of everything that's been announced so far each 20th? I haven't been paying attention but it doesn't seem like much outside of toys or something.

 

Well there have been a fair amount of playlists and stuff but besides that nothing I'm aware of.