Day 2 of Comic Con is behind us, and what a day it was!

After getting in some morning blogging and work time, the community team headed over to the SEGA booth to hand out T-shirts to cosplayers. It wasn’t long before we had a few people come by.

Although not technically a costume, we couldn’t resist handing out a t-shirt as a reward for this home-made Sonic Team shirt.

It wasn’t long before more people came by, including the winner of our trivia contest.

Here’s our winner, Kori-Maru as he’s known on the SEGA blogs & forums, with his Madworld prizes.

While we were chatting with Kori, a film crew from Gamespot TV came over to talk to one of our brand managers, Derrek, about Bleach.

We also had a visit from an enthusiastic young man named Steven. (That’s him in the photo at the top). His dad said that Steven’s whole life was Sonic, and he was very excited to play Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. As he went over to play the game, the Gamespot crew finished filming Bleach and moved on to Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing.

Since he was doing such a fantastic job, Steven continued to play the game while the Gamespot crew filmed. He was a such a great sport for helping us out, that we’re going to send him a free copy of the game when it’s released.

After hanging out at the booth for a little longer, we went in search of food. The line was long, but the food was pretty good. Because there was nowhere to sit, we ended up on the floor.

As it turns out, our lunch seating was fortuitous. As we gazed to our left, we caught sight of some Sonic artwork in Artists’ Alley. When we walked up, we realized that it was Ken Penders, best known for illustrating the Sonic the Hedgehog comics. Ken had many items for sale, including some old Sonic comics.

Ken signed some comics for us, and we had a great conversation. We also picked up some original page layout illustrations from the comic books. Here’s one illustration, alongside the final page in the comic.

After seeing Ken, we walked down the show floor a but farther and found Sands of Destruction at the Funimation booth.

A little farther down the way, we came upon some limited edition Metal Sonic figurines. These are only for sale at Comic Con.

After a bit of a break and rest for our feet, we headed back to the SEGA booth for a while. We had someone in another great costume come by, and he got a free shirt!

As we left, the crowds were getting thicker outside the convention center. It was a busy, but great day, and I’m looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings!

This Friday, we’re holding a special event with PlatinumGames to show off our upcoming game, Bayonetta. The event will feature some face time with the PlatinumGames crew, a chance to play some Bayonetta in an exclusive event, and potentially win one of the hottest Xbox 360′s I’ve ever seen. No kidding.

A machine almost as beautiful as Bayonetta herself, the Xbox 360 arrived in our offices a day before San Diego Comic-con and nearly everyone in the office stopped by to gaze at it. While checking out the event space yesterday, PlatinumGames had a chance to look at the Xbox and were in awe of how good it looked. The unit is fully functional and will be available to one lucky winner who attends the event, if you aren’t attending there is still hope!

If you are at Comic-con and want to attend the event and get your hands on Xbox, there two ways you can score a ticket to the event:
- Dress Like a Sega Character and attend one of our cosplay events. We should have at least two tickets to give out per meet up, so come prepared with expert knowledge of Bayonetta!

- Dress up like Bayonetta on Friday and come find us at the Booth! We’re rewarding the hardcore Bayonetta fan who is willing to go the extra mile. Tickets are not unlimited, so come early and check us out!

There you have it, be sure to come out and see us at the Show even if you aren’t in costume! Sega is located at marker 5200 on the show floor.

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Updated 7/23 – We will also have limited tickets available on a first come first serve basis to those attending the PlatinumGames Panel at San Diego Comic Con. Be there early to get in line and grab a pass to this exclusive event!

Last night, Iron Man 2 (the game) had its world premiere in the Marvel booth. The photo above is of the Marvel stage, and the game was played on those screens in the upper corners. There was a great crowd gathered to see the game for the first time.

Kyle, the Creative Director from SEGA Studios San Francisco, led the demo. Dean, the producer of the game, did the driving. The demo took about 15 minutes and we got to see lots of flying, shooting, melee, and the boss battle for the level.

The game has an all-new story (not tied to the movie) written by acclaimed comic book writer Matt Fraction. There are diverse play spaces and enemies, and great controls that let you fly indoors or out. You can choose what’s in your suit, and how you want to fight your enemies.

Kyle said that as producers and developers, it’s a lot easier when not tied to the movie storyline — they are freed up to do whatever they want.

We got a glimpse of some interior spaces, which are new to the franchise and add variety to the gameplay. Lots of people didn’t like that the last game only had exterior play, so they’ve added the interior spaces in this game.

As the fighting continued in the demo, Kyle said that at every point they were asking themselves “Why is this Iron Man’s problem?” because they didn’t want to put anything in the game that the cops or the Army could handle. This makes for a more exciting and challenging gameplay.

At the end, we got a glimpse of Crimson Dynamo, who a lot of fans also wished was in the first game. He’s in this one!

At the end of the demo, the Marvel team passed out some limited-edition posters to the crowd.

Then Matt Fraction came on stage to sign things for fans. Before he sat down to sign though, he took some time to get a close-up look at the suits on stage, and even took a few photos of them. It was cool to see him as interested in them as the fans in the crowd were.

Matt sat down and signed stuff for fans. There was a huge line that wrapped all the way around the Marvel booth!

That’s all for the premiere, but there’s a lot more to come. There will be several more demonstrations of Iron Man 2 on the Marvel stage, as well as in the Marvel booth and in the SEGA booth. This was my first time seeing the gameplay too, and I have to say that it’s looking really great.