This character would not only serve as that company’s mascot, but would also attract existing players and newcomers to try that company’s other games. Most video game characters whose sole purpose was to be the mascot for a video game company would often combine traits that represent that particular game company. So it was inevitable that other companies would try to find a character that they could call their own. Of course, other companies were fully aware of this fact, and Nintendo made it no secret. The characters they created aided them in that goal, and it paid off in spades. Nintendo games and hardware are designed primarily, and purely, to entertain. Nintendo, being a video game company that originates from the Kyoto Prefecture in Japan, approaches game design from the point of view of an entertainer. In the late 80s, most gaming companies weren’t entirely sure how Nintendo achieved such great success almost through branding alone. When people referred to “video games” back then they often referred to other consoles as “the Nintendo”. When a person thinks of a fun platformer, they instantly think of Mario. Nintendo had many iconic characters with innovative game play to match (for the time). To this very day, what separates Nintendo apart from every other company in this industry is their “brand”. While Nintendo weren’t the only ones creating high quality games, other companies within the industry couldn’t come close to capturing an audience the way that Nintendo could. Failure after failure, none could hold a candle to the fun and personality Nintendo offered to everyone. Many companies who wanted in on the video game business came and went during the time of Nintendo’s trending success. They were a force to be reckoned with, a fact that remains true to this very day. Nintendo characters were on your television screens, in your magazines, toy stores, and even on your cereal boxes across the entire world. Saying that Nintendo and its properties was a pop culture phenomenon would be an understatement. However, even after all of that, Nintendo remained. The video game industry up until this point had just suffered through a heavy string of downfalls and uphill battles that almost killed the entire industry. In the late 1980s, there was only one true household name in the video game industry - Nintendo. Given that it has been a little over 15 years since our search began (and even longer if you consider the Sonic community itself), we have a lot to say. The story of the search for this white whale is a very personal one, so this article will be a bit different from what we usually write. Little did we know that just a little over a year later, not only would we eventually receive one, but it would arrive with no hassle or expense to us or to the community. But ever since we found a prototype of Sonic 3, we knew that it would only be a matter of time before we would eventually find a Sonic 1 prototype. If you had asked us at least ten years ago if we would ever find a Sonic 1 prototype, we would have thought you were crazy. Presenting, a prototype of Sonic the Hedgehog 1 for the Sega Mega Drive.

Sonic 1 tokyo toy show