Help Can anyone tell me why the Sonic 1 and 2 box were different in the US and Canada?

Blugenesi(Jarty) · Aug 3, 2020

Hi everyone, sorry if this could have been in the Supreme Topic of other knowledge, But this topic has confused me for a long time now and I was wondering if anyone can give me a answer and I could make a video about it.

For some reason, Sonic 1, and at the very least Sonic 2, in canada were different in terms of box art then the US versions. Generally, we canadians get games that are the exact same as the United states, but for at least Sonic 1 and 2, what we got were basically the PAL art with a genesis logo slapped on. It’s remarkably lazy especially with Sonic one, because with the bottom of the box, it still says “Sega Mega Drive” I do not have pictures of this of my own, as unfortunately I don’t have access to my canadian versions and I actually have gone on Ebay to get full sets of the japanese and american versions with manuals, but weirdly enough, it seems to be impossible to find canadian copies of Sonic 1 and 2 with everything included with a decent price on ebay or even marketplace.

Now i’m just looking for a why this is, because to me it’s a big mystery. If anyone could help me it would mean a lot to me, since I can’t find much in this subject online. I think it would make a sweet video though, so I thought i’d ask here since I basically lurk here mostly.

Black Squirrel · Aug 3, 2020

Because a good part of your country speaks French. It was easier to recycle the European designs than to make brand new covers.

Blugenesi(Jarty) · Aug 3, 2020

Black Squirrel said:

Because a good part of your country speaks French. It was easier to recycle the European designs than to make brand new covers.
Click to expand...

Is there a source on that? Because it does seem plausible, but I still think it’s a odd move and am curious

raphael_fc · Aug 3, 2020

I was hoping to see the pictures.

tokumaru · Aug 4, 2020

Don't know if this is relevant, but here in Brazil we too got the European design for Sonic 1, while we normally got the US design.

BTW, the PAL-M video standard used in Brazil actually had the same timing as NTSC, so it's not like we got the PAL versions of the games game or anything. Our ROMs have always been NTSC.

JaxTH · Aug 4, 2020

raphael_fc said:

I was hoping to see the pictures.
Click to expand...

https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(16-bit)#Physical_scans

Frozen · Aug 4, 2020

i have upload them too XD And i can confirm, because Canada have both american and france language(see modern canadian titles), was more cheaper and faster recycle cover and manual, since have already both english and france language inside. So putting Genesis logo over a Megadrve one, is the faster way for "cheating" the system.

Blugenesi(Jarty) · Aug 4, 2020

Thanks guys! I really appreciate the responses. I was hoping it would be a little bit more interesting of a reason why, but it makes sense that they just reused the Pal design because it had more languages.

Ravenfreak · Aug 5, 2020

I bought the Canadian version of Sonic 1 a few years ago. At first I thought it was odd seeing the PAL box art, but once I read the manual I realized that it was just cheaper for Sega to reuse the Pal manual since French is the secondary language to Canada of course.

Scarred Sun · Aug 5, 2020

Also worth noting that this just seems to be the general trend for early Canadian boxes: https://segaretro.org/Category:Mega_Drive_CA_box_scans

Easier to swap a Mega Drive logo for Genesis than do more work, I suppose. It does raise the question of what was done after the PAL black design, though, since theoretically, the boxes would need to be in French to sell still, but we have no later specific Canadian designs that I know of.

Help Can anyone tell me why the Sonic 1 and 2 box were different in the US and Canada?

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