Sega announced that Sonic & Friends entered the Sanrio Character Ranking 2025 poll as a collaboration between both companies. A key illustration featuring Sonic wearing a Hello Kitty hat was released alongside a short animation promoting the collaboration that appeared on TikTok.

Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Eggman appear in the short anime video, and the characters will appear wearing accessories inspired by Sanrio characters in the coming days. Additionally, merchandise based on the Sonic and Sanrio collaboration will appear. We don’t know what the items will be yet, and more information will appear in the future.

You can check out the key illustration for Sonic the Hedgehog in the Hello Kitty hat in the Sanrio Character Ranking 2025 poll below. So far, the other five characters only appear as silhouettes in the official art. However, it is obvious that Kuromi is involved, and it seems that since that silhouette is red, it could be tied to Knuckles.

The voting period for the Sanrio Character Ranking 2025 is now open and will last until May 25, 2025.

As a reminder, Pompompurin is currently leading the poll as of the last update, followed by Cinnamoroll and Pochacco in second and third place. The tentative top 10 of characters in the poll was released in mid-April 2025, but the results are subject to change as more votes arrive.

The 40th Sanrio Character Ranking poll is accessible worldwide on PC and smartphones until Sunday, May 25, 2025.

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The official Sonic the Hedgehog social media posted a comic created by Hololive Vtuber Inugami Korone. Korone was announced as an official Sonic ambassador back in 2022 and has since been involved with several collaborations with Sega.

The comic appears as part of the "Fast Friends Forever" segment, which presents comics drawn by notable Sonic fans followed by short segments where they talk about their relation to the franchise. The segment has previously featured voice actress Yuuki Aoi (Shuten Douji in Fate, Madoka Kaname in Puella Magi Madoka Magica), and VOFAN (Illustrator for the Monogatari light novels).

In her question segment following the comic, Inugami Korone stated that her first experience with Sonic the Hedgehog was in 2021, when she played the original game on Mega Drive/Genesis. She also noted that her favorite character is Knuckles, citing his cool name and gloves as reasons.

You can find Korone's comic, as well as the Q&A segment, in the tweets below:

As well as the comic, other Sonic and Korone collaborations included her appearance at the 2023 Sonic Square Event and her Sonic-inspired outfit revealed back in 2022. Meanwhile, film director Jeff Fowler teased the appearance of Shadow the Hedgehog in the movie Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

Inugami Korone streams on Youtube as part of the Hololive agency, and you can find her channel here and her Twitter here.

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Most fans of Sonic the Hedgehog know that Sonic’s archenemy was first known as Dr. Robotnik before eventually becoming referred to as Eggman. But what prompted this switch? Game Informer recently found out the answer to this when they asked Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka.   Here’s Iizuka’s explanation for the name change:  

“When the game was originally developed in Japan, they called the character Eggman. That was the name of the character, but when the game got localized and ported into the Sonic the Hedgehog that we know in the West, they decided to, without confirming with the development team, change his name to Ivo Robotnik or just Robotnik. That’s kind of when everyone first learned about the character. Of course, this was without consulting the people who made the game. They just kind of went off and did it. It became super popular and everyone in the West kind of learned about the character as Robotnik. That went on through the “classic” series in the Genesis/Mega Drive era, but as far as the developers are concerned – the ones who made the character and the leaders of what this character is doing next – we really didn’t want to have anyone in the universe with two names. To us, he’s Eggman, but in the rest of the world he’s called Robotnik. We wanted to unify that into one name moving forward. This is something I actually did in the Sonic Adventure series. I made it so that we understand the character’s name is Robotnik, but his nickname is Eggman, and as far as everyone is concerned in the world now, we’re just going to call him Eggman as his official name.”

  And if you’re curious about Sonic’s recent scarves:   What’s with Sonic’s recent obsession with scarves? It’s more of like, from our side, when they were making the Sonic Boom series, they wanted to make something that would appeal to kids but also everyone else as well. We wanted to differentiate the Sonic that was on the TV show that was maybe making more jokes and doing things different in the TV show than he did in the video game. One way of making that visual different apparent to people was to either put sports tape on their bodies or scarves – some design changes that they made to the characters to make sure that Sonic Boom Sonic would be different from the Sonic the Hedgehog video game Sonic. It’s more of just making sure that the interesting things going on in the show all belong to this type of Sonic that’s different from the video game Sonic, but is still Sonic the Hedgehog.   Do any of the characters question Sonic’s new style choice? [Laughs] No, I think they just kind of accept it and appreciate that he’s wearing it.      

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Yongsan sits in the heart of Seoul and it is essentially the Akihabara of South Korea. The electronics market is lined with computer parts, digital cameras, and video games. Tons of video games, but we have to get there first and navigating Yongsan is kind of like walking through one of Etrian Odyssey's labyrinths.

The journey begins walking through a tunnel that doubles as a tribute to vintage electronics. Plaques for various predecessors, the Commodore 64, and original iPod line the walls. Technology milestones are written on the ground.

Hey, there's a Game Boy too! Hyundai partnered with Nintendo to release the Game Boy as the Hyundai Mini ComBoy. The VCR style NES was the original Comboy.

Outside of the tunnel we were greeted by a giant PlayStation Vita ad. Yeah, this is the right place! This is one of two underground malls in Yongsan that specialize in video games.

Ubisoft and Namco Bandai ads welcome shoppers. Namco Bandai has a strong distribution arm in South Korea and actually handle Square Enix's releases like Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Sleeping Dogs.

Kiosks are filled with modern games, but games don't have a fixed price. It's up to each vendor to decide what they want to sell their games for and if your Korean skills are up to par you can bargain a little.

There are a few Korea-only console games like:

GloRace: Phantastic Carnival - it's like Mario Kart for PSP, but all of the tracks are Rainbow Road

Vulcanus – a mecha game for PSP

Pump it Up – a port of the arcade for PSP dancing game sans dance pad

MapleStory DS – an offline action RPG take created by Nintendo & Nexon

Magic Hanja – a Hanja (Chinese character) teaching game from Skonec

SuperStar – one of the few Korean exclusives for Xbox 360, it's a karaoke game

Axel Impact – a PS2 racing game

Come on Baby – a mini game collection for PS2 that's kind of like Bishi Bashi

Another weird fact – Konami released Oz aka The Sword of Etheria in Europe as Chains of Power in Korea. North America for whatever reason was the only region that missed out on the action game which some of Suikoden's staff worked on.

While some kiosks focus on the present, others specialize in the past.

Hard to find games like Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, Super Mario RPG, Strider for Genesis, and boxed Dragon Quest games are available. That copy of Treasure Hunter G from Sting and Square Enix was under $20 and it included the instruction manual.

The same retailer had NeoGeo MVS (Multi Video System) arcade chipsets too.

Boxes of retro games including a graveyard of Sonic Classics carts. Hyundai used to distribute Sega's games too and they're all here in Yongsan! Why didn't console games catch on? On top of buying additional hardware, the games were not localized into Korean which made them less accessible. Compare that to today when massive RPGs like Persona 4: Golden are translated into Korean and heavily promoted by Sony Computer Entertainment Korea.

Handheld systems like the Nintendo DS got a big boost from celebrities like Girls Generation who promoted the system.

Huh… those Gam Brothers look pretty familiar…

Yongsan also has pirate game Famicom carts – the weird kind with Halo on the cover and Mario photoshopped onto Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.

Let's take a closer look at those carts, shall we?

Hero Story, Hero Dunk, and Dodge? Count me in! Sonic 5 where Sonic plays Santa Claus? Awesome.

I really want to know what Fatal Fox is…

Yeah, that's Pokémon: Silver and Pokémon: Gold for the Famicom. Neither cart worked so we weren't able to find out what hacked games these are.

And of course, there is was one DJMax Portable 2 Orpheus package.

The post Let’s Take A Trip To Yongsan, It’s Like Korea’s Akihabara appeared first on Siliconera.

Hatsune Miku is celebrating Sonic's birthday by wearing a Sonic jumpsuit in Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Ver. 2.5. It's one of the new modules Sega added to the PSP title. You can also dress Hatsune Miku as Fei Yen, one of the playable virtuaroids in Virtual-On, and as Racing Miku 2011.

The official site has pictures of more modules like append outfits and racing costumes for most of the game's characters. Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Ver. 2.5 is slated for release this fall in Japan.

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Sonic Generations updates select stages -- both 2D and 3D -- from the past two decades of Sonic games in high-definition. Today, Sega released the first in-game footage of the game.

Generations be a retail game on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. No date has been announced yet, other than that the game is coming sometime this year.

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Earlier this month, Sega teased a new Sonic the Hedgehog game, meant to celebrate their mascot’s 20th anniversary this year. Today, the game has gotten an “official” reveal as Sonic Generations.

Sonic Generations will, as the teaser video hinted, allow you to play as two Sonics — the classic 1991 version of the character, and the present-day design. There are differences between the two, too; classic Sonic can perform a Spin Dash and Spin Attack, while modern Sonic is capable of a Homing Attack and Sonic Boost.

Sega say that Generations is a re-built high-definition version of the most recognizable Sonic stages from the past two decades. This will include both 2D and 3D stages. Throughout the course of the game, you’ll uncover hidden treasure and meet other Sonic characters as you progress.

Sonic Generations doesn’t have a release date yet (simply “later this year”), but Sega say that it’s a retail game for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

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2011 marks a lot of anniversaries. It marks the 15th anniversary of Resident Evil, the 25th anniversary of Dragon Quest and The Legend of Zelda, and the 15th anniversary of Pokémon. It also marks the 20th anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Naturally, Sega have something planned to celebrate the event, and they’ve been teasing it over Facebook and Twitter. A tweet from their official Twitter :

“Sonic’s 20th Anniversary is this year, but SEGA start celebrating on 7th April and you’ll only find out how on the Sonic Facebook page!”

This is the Facebook page they’re referring to, in case you want to keep an eye on it. This tease comes just months after a Sega representative at an event in Madrid, Spain reportedly mentioned plans for an “Sonic Anniversary” title to fansite, Sonic Paradise, in October 2010. It is believed that this title will be a compilation of past Sonic the Hedgehog stages, adapted for modern consoles.

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The above is a speed run for Sonic the Hedgehog 4’s Splash Hill Zone – Act 1 stage, performed by Paraxade0 who Sega credited in a post on their blog after they noticed his run. Episode 2 of Sonic 4 doesn’t have a locked release date yet.

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Sega’s most iconic character, Sonic the Hedgehog, turns 20 on June 23, 2011. While the character was designed in Japan, Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis was released in the West first.

Sonic isn’t the only franchise celebrating its 20th birthday. Blob stacking puzzle game Puyo Puyo turns 20 too.

Sega has unspecified plans to celebrate both titles. Meanwhile, Alex Kidd who turned 20 a few years ago is restricted to cameos in games like Segagaga and Hyperdimension Neptunia.

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Six-inch Sonic watching over your Wii remotes while they recharge? That’s what MadCatz and Sega are advertising with this Sonic the Hedgehog Figure Inductive Charger in celebration of Sonic’s 20th anniversary.

MadCatz say you’ll get up to 15 hours of battery life out of a full charge. Keep in mind, though, that the motion-sensor and IR pointer deplete the Wii remote’s batteries faster than simply using the buttons. You can grab the Sonic charger from their online store for $49.99.

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Sega is also cashing in on the Sengoku or Warring States craze with a card battling arcade game called Great Battle History Gettenka. On November 25, Sega is bringing the game to consoles. Well, handhelds.

Gettenka Tenkaichi Battle Royale is in development for the Nintendo DS. Instead of being another Love & Berry Dress Up and Dance, this game does not use Sega’s card reader. Gettenka Tenkaichi Battle Royale takes after Super Smash Bros. or perhaps the Bleach DS games. Four Sengoku-era fighters duke it out on a 2D battlefield. Gettenka Tenkaichi Battle Royale s play so four Sengoku doctorates can brawl with one DS card.

One feature that makes the game different is players can customize their character. Before a battle you can equip weapons and items like a sword & shield or a bow that fires a three arrow spread shot.

The ultimate weapon may be… Sonic the Hedgehog. Nobunaga Utsuke can "equip" Sonic as an item and summon him through a magical Sega wormhole to roll over enemies with a spin dash attack.

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