Hey again, its me again trying to do some research for a Sonic 2 development video. In this early Sonic 1 Commercial, at the very end, Sonic is seen piloting a ship to attack something that clearly looks almost EXACTLY like a Death Egg. Thing is, the game they are promoting is clearly Sonic The Hedgehog 1.... So I was wondering if anyone would know around when this would have started airing in japan, as all I could find is "Around the release of Sonic 1" And I was just wondering how accurate that would be. I do not know how much people can know about a obscure Sonic commercial from this early on, but I am just seeing if theres any more information about this. Also, does a higher quality version of this commercial exist? I found a few SLIGHTLY better quality versions in various collections, but not by much or even on this site. Any help would be appreciated!
I think we'd need more Japanese magazines and promotional Sega VHSs to confirm the air date. The "A" commercial, as its listed in Sonic Jam, uses the "Sonic the Hedgehog" branding, but this "B" commercial uses "SegaSonic the Hedgehog". The SegaSonic branding came into use at the very end of 1991 or early 1992. Whether there's any connection to Sonic 2's Death Egg, or if they both landed on the same Star Wars parody by sheer coincidence, is something that could probably only be answered by the people involved.
Funnily enough the spaceship Sonic is piloting has a strong similarity to the one in Segasonic Space Patrol, which wasn't released until 1993. There's also a desert looking level, and a clock(work) zone shown. Wouldn't be surprised if the animations were done based on early concept arts. We've already seen proof that early concept arts were re-used through the development of sonic titles. from Sonic 2's snow level concept being used in Sonic 3, and from that concept art being used for Sonic Advance (Can't be bothered to find links for this, but if you've been keeping up with all the forum posts, all that info was on here via video recording screencaps)
I've wondered about that ever since I saw that ad. There are also other similarities to concepts from later games, such as the design of the spaceship Sonic uses in the "Death Egg" scene (reminiscent of the Tornado II in jet mode), the western desert, or the clock tower. Those could just be coincidences, but I wouldn't be surprised if Sonic Team drew inspiration from that commercial at various points.
Yes, exactly the point I wanted to make in my video. This early commercial has lots of ideas that we’ve seen either implemented later or was planned to be at some point. This is all speculation, but the watery level reminds me of the original water caverns area seen in some S1 concept art, who couldn’t think of sand showers with that desert, and I mean.... you got me on the big ben looking area. Maybe a early starlight? I dunno. It’s kind of why as impossible as it probably is to completely pin point the time this commercial went to air, we do know it must have been before Sonic 2 went to release a year and a few months after..... and animation takes time.... so I wonder if these odd scenes in this commercial are a by product of this, kind of like the CD animations.
You're reading far too much into this - it's a sequence of random action scenes, some based on films: others presumably made up. Lost Sonic music OMG. Star Wars was a thing well before Sonic 2.
Like I just, it could just all be coincidences. I know that ad is filled with cliches, but I find it fun that many of the scenes in this particular commercial coincided with concepts used in later games. It's known that Sonic Team looked at Japanese Sega ads and took things from them in the past, namely the Seeeeegaaaaa chant. I don't think it's an impossibility that they saw this ad and went "Say, wouldn't it be cool to put that in an actual Sonic game?", especially when the games and the commercial shared a more specific concept like "Death Star parody with Eggman's face".
In addition to the SegaSonic branding (which only came out 12/1991 at the earliest), this commercial states at the end "Game Gear version currently available for sale". GG Sonic was released 12/28/1991, so the commercial would have been after that. I suspect this commercial was a holiday-period commercial, either New Years or Spring Break. Both the Japanese school year and company fiscal year begin April 1, so there are a lot of Spring advertising campaigns in March (children have more time then, and companies want to make a last push to boost their performance for the current year). Just a guess, though. If the commercial came as late as March 1992, then it's possible that the Death Egg in the commercial is based on something coming out of Sonic 2 development. Of course, as you say, it's also possible that the Sonic 2 developers saw the commercial and were influenced by it. And, most likely, it was all just a coincidence. I don't know how much exposure the Sonic 2 team would have had to a Japanese TV commercial at the time, and also how much access the commercial creators would have had to the development team. And yeah, Star Wars is not exactly unknown.
The 1992 school year was also when the Sonic manga launched in Shogakukan's elementary school grade magazines (the debut April issues would have been released in March). So the Sonic brand was getting a push in Japan at that particular time.
