Sega Genesis
Sega sold 30.75 million Genesis units worldwide. Of these, 3.58 million were sold in Japan, and sales in Europe and the U.S. are roughly estimated at 8 million and 18–18.5 million as of June 1997 (at which time Sega was no longer manufacturing the system) respectively. In 1998, Sega licensed the Genesis to Majesco Entertainment in North America so it could re-release the console. Majesco began reselling millions of formerly unsold cartridges at a budget price, together with 150,000 units of the second model of the Genesis. It released the Sega Genesis 3, projecting to sell 1.5 million units of the console by the end of 1998. An estimated 3 million Genesis units were sold by Tec Toy in Brazil.
Sonic Adventure
During the early 1990s, Sega was one of the most successful video game companies due to its Genesis console. Sales for the console were driven by the popularity of its flagship franchise of 2D platformers, "Sonic the Hedgehog". During this time, series co-creator Yuji Naka worked with Sega Technical Institute (STI) in the United States to develop "Sonic" games. After the completion of "Sonic & Knuckles" in 1994, Naka moved to work with Sonic Team in Japan. STI began developing "Sonic X-treme" for the Sega Saturn"," which would have been the first "Sonic the Hedgehog" game to feature full 3D gameplay. "X-treme" suffered a series of setbacks and was canceled in 1997. The cancellation is an important factor in the Saturn's commercial failure; without it, the system had no original "Sonic" platformer. Meanwhile, Naka and Sonic Team developed original Saturn games, such as "Nights into Dreams." Due to the series' relative lack of presence on the Saturn, according to "Retro Gamer", "[b]y mid-1997 Sonic had essentially been shuffled into the background... it was astonishing to see that just six years after his debut, Sonic was already retro."