Ivo Gerscovich, Chief Sonic Brand Officer at Sega US, picks his highlights of that: “The ones which really left an impression with me over the years have to include the Sonic Spaghetti and the Sonic and Knuckles-themed diapers - and who could forget the Sonic The Hedgehog curry or the Sonic toaster?” Sonic has starred in his own feature film – with a sequel due for an April 2022 release – and made cameos in countless games, including various Olympics-themed ones with one-time arch-rival Mario, Minecraft, Fall Guys and Monster Hunter. The universally lovable Sonic, meanwhile, caught the public imagination to such an extent that he spawned an outrageous body of merchandising. Yet 1991’s Sonic The Hedgehog was a fine game, using unprecedented speed to take platform-gaming to a whole new area, selling a mind-boggling 24million units in 30 years (with mobile versions taken into account), while the Sonic franchise overall has shifted a staggering 140million units, putting it right up there with the games industry’s biggest money-spinners. At the time, he seemed an unlikely future standard-bearer for the games industry – Sonic The Hedgehog was a lurid shade of blue, didn’t really look anything like a hedgehog and moved about twenty times quicker than any hedgehog that ever existed in real life. Three decades ago this year, a pop-culture phenomenon whirled into life on the Sega Mega Drive. READ MORE: How ‘The Witcher 3’ turned me into a fantasy nerd.We tracked down Jun Senoue, Sonic’s musical guru since 1993. In the course of 30 years, Sonic The Hedgehog has become a cultural icon, and the music from his games has provided soundtracks for several generations of gamers.

Sonic synth 40