Monday, November 14, 2016

Sonic 2017 on Switch & More Japan Items

Back when Sonicgear was first starting to be built...
It was assumed that the "Japan" side would have as much as the USA side. However, as you can see how the site went on and on...that's not the case. WAY more USA stuff, and even European/other country stuff just kept showing up. However, as you'll see recently, the Japan pages have been increasing. New pages for 3 categories went up just this week. This has caused the question to arise again:

Who has the most stuff?

Did the USA end up with the most Sonic merch?
Is it Japan?

Australia was certainly in the running back in the early days because it had Segaworld making loads of items all the time for sales in the shops. And they wouldn't do just like ONE umbrella...they'd do like 4 or 5 each with a different character thereby increasing their items at every turn of a mug or tee. However, when their Segaworld ended, it was still before digital cameras were everywhere, so photos remain unfound, and it's well known that items were missed.

Why not as much Japan?
Because it's too hard to get photos from there, or at least it was. Back in the day, and now still, the search engines don't search too well out of their own starting language. There's no JP equivalent of Gear, and they don't have an exact ebay clone that caters worldwide like...well...ebay to mine for photos.
But, that may be slowly changing as people sell parts of their collections online, and searches get better and more people keep an eye out. If it continues, we may find out who ended up with the most Sonic stuff...and it's sure to continue because...

Sonic 2017!
GameNGuide is already rumor-milling that the 'new character' is a hedgehog but they neglect where they found the proof. A thing that IS confirmed however, is that it'll come out for the Nintendo Switch and also Windows so you don't have to buy a console if you don't want to. A new game will mean new merchandise if they can calm down off the Boom storm and stay that way long enough to allow things to be produced again.

Item of the Week:
The Sonic Spoon! Why? Because it's a spoon & that's fairly wacky. Brand saturation of a high enough degree to get onto everyday items like utensils is great to see. Hopefully there's a whole set of silverware out there with him on it. The package for it is very fun too.
Co-item of the week:
The file case. This is some good design here, colorful, loads of characters that could be someone's favorite. It goes against a lot of the "usual" stuff that generally seems to just spam Sonic and a logo or try to be understated somehow. This stands out and just looks really fresh.

Arby's:
This is fun stuff! It had to be clarified WHY it got on (as paperchildren don't...which is what this was close to) and that it did because it's official. Seeing a company that just PLAYS with stuff & throws a bone to the fans is what's super cool. It's the kind of relationship type ad that double promotes while still being fun and classy. Whoever they have in charge knows what's up.

Next week:
More Japan items are certainly in store. So too hopefully...is the literal store, as in the Gear Store. Possibly even during the week. Fixing the store & adding new things takes a huge amount of time and is a gigantic task. But it is very necessary as the holidays approach.