Monday, August 24, 2015

Why Is It 2sday? Tuesday is Video Game Release Day

Today's post will contain something educational / trivia.
Why? Because there's not a whole lot of newsworthy things going on in merchandise. The Australia Boom stuff hasn't come out yet, JW is still off the license, submissions of stuff to the site are still pretty low...there's just not that much going on. So why not get into a little bit of history?

(If you already know the answer, just skip to the bottom of the post)
Sonic's influence reaches far & wide across industries!

Be sure to read this article here, if you don't know.
http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/11/13/the-weird-reason-why-video-games-are-released-on-tuesdays/

Rocket News writes about it as well.

As you may know, lots of video games, no-matter the publisher, or console they're for, tend to release on a Tuesday. So do CDs and sometimes also DVDs. (Day of the month doesn't seem to matter, just such that it's on that particular day of the week) But why? You might ask.

It doesn't actually make a lot of sense, but it is ok.
If it's for kids, you'd think you'd want Friday, because school's always out for the weekend. You wouldn't want sunday, because there's no postal mail. Monday's no good either, everyone's too busy. Saturday might also work, because people tend to be off then. However, Tuesday just seems kind of random until you learn the SONIC history behind it!

Sonic 2 was released on Tuesday.
It was one of the first 'global launch' games, and they wanted a pun, something really memorable to launch on, so the pun/number-word whatever it is "2sday" was made, and the rest went into history. It worked because Sonic 1 was great, everyone trusted Sonic, and Sonic 2 was actually really great. So it wasn't just hype. When everyone bought it, they loved it. It lived up to what people were expecting from "more Sonic". It remains a lot of people's favorite Sonic game to this day. Sonic fans all over the world are always the same in 1 thing: that is, wanting Sonic good content as fast as possible. (you don't want to be sitting there for months while some tortoise localizes it--that's frustrating)

Of course other companies and people see this success.
They want a success too, so without really looking at WHY and HOW 2sday succeeded, they just decided that must be some kind of 'awesome day' that 'works really well to sell things', and so have aped it ever since.

Global launch is good.
No it isn't as easy to release world wide, but nothing beats it for powering up the fans & hype trains and what have you, especially if you don't have an unlimited ad budget or infinite hype-train (Starwars) to just flail until everything works. Has everyone learned this lesson? TOTALLY NOT and it annoys fans & makes lower sales to this day.

It was the #2 in the line of sequels
It was funny, made sense and kept it in people's minds before the internet was there to badger everyone continually about any and everything. Releasing the 7th game on a Tuesday does nothing for memorable puns.

The first game was good.
The first (OR previous game) being good is EXTRA important to selling another. If there's no confidence because the previous one stunk you're not going to get the hype no matter what you do.

Sonic 2 was actually really really good.
It was more of what people wanted. It delivered. It went faster, it went bigger, it was not composed of zany gimmicks, bandwagon jumping, pandering, attempting to cross over or any poorly made shenanigans that annoy fans today. So anyone who bought it and played it, would say good things about it. (remember...no internet!) Which really means something, even then.

Isn't it so cool how much influence Sonic has on like...THREE industries? (CD, DVD & Video game) that's still mostly continuing on however many years now it is after the release of Sonic 2, here in 2015?
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Educational article area end.

Item of the week:
Either Ages/Sega poster or toyfair E-102. The poster is a mystery item, so it's likely to move if someone can contribute info. The E-102 1-of-a-kind (probably) figure is also great to see. He's ReSaurus's absolute best piece. It also gives you insight into what companies do for trade show showings like toyfair, or wherever it was ReSaurus showed their Series Two at.

Next week:
Maybe some store stuff. It's coming due for the fall overhaul because there should be some fall line items out. (Probably Boom costumes too, as we know those exist) Also more from the defunct Japan site, most likely. It's having 1 or 2 things to go up each week & be preserved. However, that depends on if anyone finds anything to send in.