Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure
In August 1999, SNK announced that they were collaborating with Sega to develop a "Sonic the Hedgehog" game for their Neo Geo Pocket Color handheld system. The game was developed by SNK, with supervision from Yuji Naka and Sonic Team at Sega. This marked the first time Sega was directly involved in the development of a "Sonic" game for a non-Sega platform. The team planned for "Sonic Pocket Adventure" to be a return to the classic 2D gameplay style found in the "Sonic" games on the Sega Genesis. In particular, many game design and visual elements are borrowed from "Sonic 2". The game's background music tracks are also 8-bit renditions of music from "Sonic 3". "Sonic Pocket Adventure" was released first in North America on December 4, 1999. SNK released a system bundle with the game included for the holiday season. The game was released in Japan two weeks later, and in Europe in February 2000.
Sonic the Hedgehog (8-bit video game)
In 1990, Sega released the Game Gear, an 8-bit handheld game console designed to compete with Nintendo's Game Boy. Around the same time, Sonic Team worked on "Sonic the Hedgehog" for the 16-bit Genesis and Sega wanted to increase consumer awareness of the Game Gear by producing a version of "Sonic" for the system. 22-year old composer Yuzo Koshiro had recently started working with Sega, having been asked to compose the soundtrack for the Genesis version of "The Revenge of Shinobi" (1989). After, he told a section chief he could develop games himself. As a result, a general manager, whom Koshiro met while working on "The Revenge of Shinobi", asked him to start developing a Game Gear version of "Sonic". Koshiro founded Ancient to develop the game because Sega could not make contracts with individuals. His sister Ayano Koshiro served as director and his mother Tomo Koshiro had a "behind the scenes" role, while the first programmer he hired was Shinobu Hayashi. The 8-bit "Sonic" was created specifically for the Game Gear, but Sega also had Ancient develop a version for the Master System, which was selling well and had similar hardware.