We showed you some of the awesome stuff we’re giving away in our E3 booth earlier today. We know lots of you can’t make it to E3, so we put aside 3 packs of stuff to give away this Friday! Sorry there’s no video this week — as you can tell, we’re pretty busy in the SEGA booth! Since we’ll be traveling back on Friday, Edward@SEGA has graciously agreed to do Free Stuff Friday for you. Please be nice to him!

How it Works
1. You must be following us on Twitter to be eligible. (If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can create one by going to http://www.twitter.com and click the green “get started — join!” button in the center of the page.)

2. At random times on Friday, we will announce the prize we are giving away, a word or phrase, and what number of response you need to be to win. Send us a direct message (DM) via Twitter and be that number to win the prize. (@ replies do not count as entries!) We only accept one direct message per person per prize!

Example:

We tweet “GIVEAWAY: Sonic T-shirt, size L. Be the 15th person to DM “Sonic Adventure” to win!”

You see this, and want to win it, so you send us a direct message that says “Sonic Adventure”. If you are the 15th person to do so, you are the winner!

Quotation marks do not matter, capitalization does not matter, but spelling does matter!

3. All followers are eligible to win all prizes, unless a restriction is noted. Restrictions are usually due to the prize being region-locked. For example, US games that won’t work on UK gaming systems. There may also be age restrictions due to the rating of the game.

4. We will announce the winner on our Twitter feed once eligibility is confirmed.

Other Assorted Information:

Free Stuff Friday duties alternate between the London and San Francisco offices and are done during business hours (usually mid-morning) in our respective time zones.
No, you can’t know what number message you were – so please don’t ask! We will tell you that the information is classified!
If you have questions during the giveaway, please contact us with an @reply. As you can imagine, we get a whole lot of direct messages during the contests and there is a very good chance we will miss your question if it is sent as a DM.
How to Send Direct Messages on Twitter
Due to a change in our account status with Twitter, you should be able to send us direct messages without us following you. However, third-party applications may not allow you to.

There are a few ways to send us a Direct Message on Twitter. The easiest way is:

Log in to your Twitter account.
Click on the person icon and select Direct messages from the drop down menu.
You’ll see a pop up showing your Direct message history. Click the New message button, highlighted below.
In the address box, type the name or username (SEGA) of the person you wish to send a message to.
Enter your message and click Send message.
You may also select the “direct messages” tab from your Twitter homepage, and select SEGA from the drop-down menu at the top of the page. Again, if you don’t see our name there, it’s probably because we’re not following you. Let us know, and we’ll follow you. If you still have questions on sending direct messages, please visit Twitter’s Help Section.

There are also many Twitter clients that you can use instead of using the website. These include TweetDeck, Twitteriffic, Tweetie, and Twhirl. Each of these programs works differently, so you’ll want to figure out how to send a direct message on the program you use. If you want to send us a test message, we’ll let you know if we received it or not. Please make sure your message says “test” somewhere.

The first day of E3 is always exciting… but today was another level of excitement. We’re thrilled to have had Danica Patrick in our booth, and to announce that she will be appearing alongside Sonic the Hedgehog in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. Known for her talents behind the wheel, Danica will be a playable character with customized vehicles in the game. That means you’ll get the chance to test your racing abilities as Danica against an All-Star cast of SEGA characters including Sonic, Knuckles, AiAi and others.

“It’s a very exciting experience since I’ll be sharing the screen with such an iconic character,” said Danica Patrick. “I cannot wait for gamers to jump into my customized, transformable vehicles and give Sonic a run for his rings this holiday season!”

“Danica Patrick is one of the most popular athletes in the world and her accomplishments both on and off the track make her the perfect partner for Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed,” said Masanao Maeda, President and COO, SEGA of America. “Danica’s involvement showcases the broad appeal of this title – everyone from casual gamers to hard core racing fans will be able to enjoy the fun.”

To further enhance this partnership, Danica will be racing in a custom No. 7 Sonic the Hedgehog Chevrolet, fielded by JR Motorsports, during the O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge on November 3at the Texas Motor Speedway (to be televised live on ESPN). The race, part of NASCAR’s Nationwide Series, marks Sonic the Hedgehog’s NASCAR debut. The customized race car was revealed today in our E3 booth, and will be on display for the rest of the show. Additionally, Danica will be integrated into the national marketing campaign for Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed will be available on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system, PlayStation Vita, the Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo’s Wii U, and PC Digital Download this holiday season.

E3 is here! The show is now officially open, which means we can give you your first glimpse of what our booth looks like this year. Let’s start at the reception desk.

This is the nerve center of the booth. It’s here that people come to check in for appointments, to ask questions about SEGA and our games, and to see people in our booth. It’s also where the giveaway items will be (we have the SEGA magnets and candy we had at PAX East, along with some new buttons for Hell Yeah! and some sweet Jet Set Radio lanyards), and where I’ll spend most of the show on my laptop, looking after the blogs and social media.

From here, go to the left and you’ll see Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown. We’ve got 6 stations, each equipped with fighting sticks.

On the opposite side of Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is the Hell Yeah! lounge. Camille from Arkedo will be here to help show off this fantastic game. Eagle-eyed fans may note that this space looks familiar, and you’d be right — this space was used to show off Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II at PAX East.

Next to the Hell Yeah! lounge is what we’ve dubbed “The Cave cave” which may not be terribly original, but it is fairly accurate. This is an enclosed space, giving people coming to see the demo a fitting environment. Ron Gilbert will be here to show off the game throughout the show.

Next up is our multiplayer setup for Aliens: Colonial Marines. This is the first time we’ve shown the game in an open environment, where people can walk by and get a glimpse of the action — previously, it was only shown in an enclosed theatre.

We’re super excited to have the original Alien Queen prop from the movies in our booth. This is a beautiful piece of cinematic history that we hope everyone in our booth will enjoy.

The power loader is back! This was a huge hit at PAX East, so we brought it back. Attendees can get their photo taken in the power loader, thanks to our on-site photo booths.

We’ve also got this car in our booth. Wonder what that’s about?

In the Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed section, we’ve got some awesome swivel chairs so attendees can play the game in style.

We also have a 16 foot Sonic in our booth!

Next is our video wall. It’s huge, and our trailers look amazing on it.

We’re showing Super Monkey Ball Banana Splitz on Vita.

Finally, we’re showing Jet Set Radio on Vita as well.

That’s it for our booth! We’re going to have lots more coverage of E3 in the coming days. Stay tuned!

E3 is less than a few weeks away ( #SegaE3 ), and we’re excited to announce our roster of titles to be shown and other fun stuff happening at the show!

We’ll be posting lots of blogs, Facebook updates, and tweets during the show.  We want to hear what you think, so please use the hashtag #SegaE3 for tweets about all of our E3 activity, including our games and our booth.

What We’re Showing at E3

The list of titles in display at SEGA’s E3 booth (South Exhibit Hall, Booth 2023) includes:

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo 3DS, and PC Digital Download. Launch Date – Late 2012.

Aliens: Colonial Marines

Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC. Launch Date – February 12, 2013 (Wii U Launch Date – 2013)

Super Monkey Ball Banana Splitz

PlayStation Vita. Launch Date – October 23, 2012

The Cave

Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC. Launch Date – Early 2013

Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit

Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, PC Digital Download. Launch Date – Summer 2012

Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown

Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network. Launch Date – June 5th & 6th, 2012

Jet Set Radio

Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, PC Digital Download, PlayStation Vita. Launch Date – Summer 2012.

 Follow us on Instagram

We’re excited to make our debut on Instagram just in time for E3! We’ll be updating with photos from the show, including some behind-the-scenes photos. (You can also expect some food pictures.)  Once E3 is over, we’ll continue updating with photos from our office and other shows we attend, and special events like Summer of Sonic and Sonic Boom. Our Instagram username is SEGA (shocking, I know), so follow us for all kinds of picture goodness. Posting pictures from our booth at E3? Our hashtag on Instagram is the same as Twitter — #SegaE3

SEGA’s Favorite Places in Los Angeles – The LA/E3 Foursquare List

Here at SEGA, we love to eat. We’ve even got a whole blog category dedicated to food.  We travel a lot, and we’re all from different parts of the world. All of that adds up to us knowing some pretty spectacular places to eat, drink, and be merry. We launched our Foursquare account earlier this year, and we’ve loved adding our tips and seeing people using our recommendations to find great stuff. As many of us are veterans of E3 and/or Los Angeles, we’ve compiled all of our LA-based tips onto this handy Foursquare list.

TL;DR

Games at E3:

• Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
• Aliens: Colonial  Marines
• Super Monkey Ball Banana Splitz
• The Cave
• Hell Yeah!
• Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown
• Jet Set Radio

Please use the hashtag #SegaE3 when tweeting about our E3 stuff, or posting Instagram photos of our E3 stuff.

We’re on Instagram! Our username is SEGA.

We compiled a Foursquare list of awesome places to go in LA.