It has been confirmed that Sonic Boom will air in Canada on French language channel Ici Radio-Canada Télé today.
Also the show will air in Taiwan and Southeast Asia (except Malaysia which already aired it earlier) on April 11th. Portugal (via kids channel SIC K) will also air Boom in either May or June, making it second country in Europe, after France (in November 2014), to air it.
Sources:
Sega Sammy Holdings has announced that is restructuring its businesses. The following changes have been announced:
Similiary, Sega has bought a domain for Sega Games (www.segagames.co.jp), while Sega’s western websites (North America/Europe/Australia) have been going under maintenance following this, with all western Sega websites being mirrored to a notice saying that the website is currently unavailable due to maintenance work with links to various Sega franchises, social network links, plus smaller links (such as Cookie Policy and UK and US Careers) below them.
[Source: TSSZ News]
This is now the final post of The Sonic Zone. After almost almost 4 years blogging, The Sonic Zone (known as Daniel Sonic from 2010 to 2013) is to be replaced by a new blog hosted on Blogger known as DanBlog, which will not just only have Sonic posts, but posts of other stuff, such as cars and other stuff.
Good bye!
The Sonic Zone (2010-2014)
For PC owners of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed. The long awaited Ryo Hazuki DLC is now live. Ryo drives around in vehicles based on various classic Sega arcade machines which are also found in the original Shenmue title.
If you fancy picking up this one, it’s very reasonably priced at only 99p.
And before you ask, So far only the PC & Mobile version of the game are to get Ryo at this time. However if this changes we’ll let you know.
Source: Steam, via The Sonic Stadium.
Yesterday we learnt from The Sonic Stadium that Greg Martin had died in May 2013. He was best known for designing the American and some European box arts of classic Sonic titles. He also designed box arts for other videogame franchises (inc. Pac-Man). In addition to box arts, he also did illustrations of Sonic in various Western Sonic the Hedgehog advertisements.
Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed now heads to Android and iOS. The game will feature Ryo Hazuki from Shenmue, however it is unknown how many other platforms he will be on.
The Sonic Zone wishes you a happy new year. I hope 2014 becomes a good year for Sonic with lots of stuff on this new year, starting with the release of the new Super Smash Bros. game.
According to TSSZ News 55% of respondents said that 2013 was a bad year for the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, compared to 61% of respondents saying that 2012 was a good year for Sonic.
The good news about Sonic the Hedgehog (in my view) in 2013 was the smartphone and tablet game Sonic Dash, as well as the remastered versions of classic Sonic games, as well as Nintendo 3DS version of the original Sonic game of 1991 released in Japan to coincide with the 25th Anniversary of the Sega Mega Drive’s (Sega Genesis in North America) Japanese release. I also say that Sonic’s appearance in the new Super Smash Bros. game was OK, even though his design for that game looked ugly to me.
The bad news was the commercial flop of Sonic Lost World and Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. We have rarely wrote many posts on Sonic Lost World, but did write some of the latter (M&S2014). It seems that we probably wrote less posts on those games possibly because I knew that those new Sonic games looked boring. Also another bad news is the upcoming animated series Sonic Boom first teased by Dave Polsky at a My Little Pony fan convention in Columbus, Ohio and first announced by Sega of America on its blog on 7 October 2013. The show is due to premiere in Autumn/Fall 2014 on Cartoon Network in the US, and Canal J and Gulli in France. The show has been criticised by Sonic fans for its redesigns of Sonic and Knuckles.
Another bad news for me was the worldwide partnership between Nintendo and Sega for the Sonic franchise back in May 2013. Nintendo was originally going publish Sonic Lost World in Europe, but ended being Sega publishing the game in Europe by the end.
According to many Sonic fans, they say that most of the new Sonic games were aimed at Nintendo/Mario type fans or Kids CGI animated film fans and to do this, SEGA has managed to semi-kill off from the new Sonic titles, Shadow, Rouge and some fan-favourites (except for Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Dr. Eggman and Metal Sonic) from Sonic the Hedgehog, other than Mario and Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games, in which Shadow, Rouge and some other similar fan favourites did appear in.
They also criticise Ken Pontac (writer for Sonic games), Warren Graff and Takashi Iizuka (the so-called head of the Sonic franchise) for having no idea on the Sonic franchise. Takashi Iizuka said in a interview with a website that the reason he wanted to make Sonic games different to what fans wanted the games to look like is due to the fact, because he thinks that “fans should need a more different Sonic game”.
The Sonic fan convention in the US, Sonic Boom had low attendance according to Sonic fan Darkminer. The Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed game’s DLCs (updates) were only available for PC users. Plus Sonic fansites have been shutting down probably fact that due to many were finding Sonic boring, according to a comment posted on a Sonic Boom TV series article on TSSZ News, and British gaming website Metro already called Sonic Lost World, one of the worst videogames, due to copycatting Super Mario Galaxy, even Takashi Iizuka noticed that. Even Sonic Wrecks turned itself from a Sonic website into a general gaming website, due to Kevin ArchAngelUK falling out of love of Sonic the Hedgehog and SEGA.
Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games has now been released in Europe. The game allows you to play 24 different events and the first time play with rivals across the globe online. The game will be available on high street/physical and online stores and can also be digitally downloaded via Nintendo eShop for only £39.99 in the UK. Although the fourth Mario & Sonic seems to have mixed reviews from critics, the same with Sonic Lost World.
Sonic Lost World will be released in Europe and Australia later this week, while Japan will be getting it on the 24th October and North America will get it on October 29th (initially October 22nd until the release date was delayed to October 29th in September 2013).
UK
Wii U
WOW HD: £29.19
Grainger Games: £29.99
Simply Games: £32.85
ShopTo: £32.86 (Pre-order bonus: 5 Black Bombs Colour Power and Rare Gold Omochao RC gadget to use in co-op mode.)
Amazon: £32.99 (Pre-order bonus: 25 extra lives and Rare Omochao RC gadget that helps collect rings in co-op mode.)
Currys: £32.99
PC World: £32.99
Argos: £32.99
365Games: £33.99
Blockbuster: £34.85
Nintendo: £34.99
GAME: £34.99
Base: £34.99
Smyths Toys: £34.99 (in store)
CoolShop: £36.95
Zavvi: £37.98
The Hut: £37.98
GameStop: £39.97
GameSeek: £44.97
Sainsburys: £44.99
Woolworths: £49.00
Very: £49.00
Littlewoods: £62.00 or pay from £0.81 per week
3DS
ShopTo: £27.85
Grainger Games: £27.99
Amazon: £27.99
Currys: £27.99
PC World: £27.99
Argos: £27.99
365Games: £28.99
Simply Games: £29.85
Blockbuster: £29.85
CoolShop: £29.95
GameStop: £29.97
Zavvi: £29.98
The Hut: £29.98
GAME: £29.99
Base: £29.99
Smyths Toys: £29.99 (in store)
Tesco: £30.00
WOW HD: £30.39
GameSeek: £34.97
Nintendo: £34.99
Sainsburys: £34.99
Woolworths: £39.00
Very: £39.00
Littlewoods: £49.00 or pay from £2.45 per week
AU
Wii U
Blockbuster: $41.56
WOW HD: $58.95
Mighty Ape: $68.49
JB Hi-Fi: $79.00
EB Games: $79.95
3DS
Blockbuster: $35.96
WOW HD: $50.95
Mighty Ape: $58.49
JB Hi-Fi: $59.00
EB Games: $59.95
US
Wii U
Amazon: $49.95 (Pre-order bonus: 25 extra lives)
Walmart: $49.96
GameStop: $49.99 (Pre-order bonus: Rare Sonic Omochao RC gadget that helps collect rings in co-op mode)
Target: $49.99
Kmart: $49.99
Best Buy: $49.99
Toys R Us: $49.99
3DS
Amazon: $39.95
Walmart: $39.96
GameStop: $39.99
Target: $39.99
Kmart: $39.99
Best Buy: $39.99
Toys R Us: $39.99
Daniel Sonic 