In 1990,
Sega's new
Genesis (
Megadrive) system was doing well enough in its own way -- but few
people really knew what to make of Sega, and people were reluctant to put forth money on an admittedly-impressive system by a
dodgy, imageless "nobody" of a company, as famous as Sega was for various arcade feats.
What Sega needed was a niche -- they needed to draw people in. They needed to be identified by something other than sporatic, disconnected arcade achievements.
They needed a mascot. Nintendo had their stupid plumber; Disney had their mouse; Kellogg's had a zoo.
Alex Kidd and Opa-Opa didn't seem to catch anybody's imagination. Sega needed a mascot.
So Yuji Naka (and Naoto Ohshima) created one!
The mascot, Sonic, and his eponymous first game, did exactly what they were intended to do; they gave Sega an actual, real public image -- something with which people could identify. Suddenly, Genesis sales skyrocketed.
Sega pretty much stayed on top, as a result of the Hedgehog, for the next four years.
Sonic is a Super-Deformed, blue hedgehog with large eyes, white gloves, and Red shoes. He's also, according to the relevant lore, the fastest creature alive. This shows in his games, which are, frankly, zippy as hell.
Sonic, being a hedgehog, can roll into a ball and whomp enemies with his spines. He collects rings to prevent damage, and, well, again, he just runs very quickly.
Sonic's goal in each of his games is, essentially, to foil the plans of the required nemesis in a situation such as this, a certain Dr. Julian Ivo Robotnik (known as Eggman in Japan).
Robotnik's plans always seem to revolve around "roboticizing" various mammalian and avian lifeforms, while Sonic's involve destroying these robots and setting the animals free.
It's worth noting that, thanks to DiC's short-lived but very well-made ABC cartoon, which expanded and fleshed-out the Sonic universe in very "real" and rather sophisticated ways, Sonic has made a rather big contribution to the furry subculture. When asked to describe the concept of "furriness," the example of Sonic's comic universe is often given right off the bat -- the extrapolations made by Dic and, later, Archie Comics, give a perfect example of how anthropomorphic characters can have complex, relatively mature interrelationships. Admittedly, the comic exists on a much lower level of sophistication and quality than did the original cartoon, but the concept still holds.
Sonic was mostly gone from the limelight, so to speak, for several years after the Genesis was retired.
His absence has been bandied around in almost every discussion on the topic as a major reason for the perceived failure of Sega's 32-bit console, the Saturn. This may be partially the case, but Sega did make a number of other strange errors in judgement as well during that period.
To make up for lost time and respect, Sega released on 9/9/99, along with the launch of their Dreamcast console, the first new Sonic game -- the first real game, anyway -- in five years, Sonic Adventure. This title, along with a few other stunningly strong launch games, a relatively strong ad campaign, and lots of word-of-mouth, helped Sega earn the largest single-day entertainment revenue in history ($97m) -- not to mention whallops of critical acclaim.
In essence, The "Blue Blur" has both saved and (re-)established Sega on two seperate occasions. Every time he's been absent, Sega has, more or less, floundered. Yuji Naka is as important to Sega's fate as Miyamoto is to that of Nintendo.
Me? I've always dug hedgehogs, anyway. They're keen.