List of Sonic the Hedgehog video games
"Sonic the Hedgehog" is a video game series. It is published by Sega, with entries developed by Sega, Sonic Team, Dimps, SIMS Co., Ltd., BioWare, and Sumo Digital. The series debuted in 1991 with the video game, "Sonic the Hedgehog", released for the Mega Drive video game console (named Genesis in North America). Most "Sonic the Hedgehog" games have either been platform games or released for Sega video game consoles and handheld game consoles (handhelds) dating from the Genesis to the eighth generation of video game consoles (2012–present). However, some of the original games were ported into versions on third-party home consoles and developed by several companies. As of February 2013, the series has collectively sold over 85 million copies worldwide across both the platform games and spin-offs.
History of Sega
In spite of the launch of the PlayStation and the Saturn, sales of 16-bit hardware/software continued to account for 64% of the video game market in 1995. Sega underestimated the continued popularity of the Genesis, and did not have the inventory to meet demand for the product. Sega was able to capture 43% of the dollar share of the U.S. video game market and sell more than 2 million Genesis units in 1995, but Kalinske estimated that "we could have sold another 300,000 Genesis systems in the November/December timeframe." Nakayama's decision to focus on the Saturn over the Genesis, based on the systems' relative performance in Japan, has been cited as the major contributing factor in this miscalculation. According to Sega Technical Institute head Roger Hector, after Sony's release of the PlayStation, the atmosphere at Sega became political, with "lots of finger-pointing".