We’re revealing new concept art for Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II each Friday, so you can get a sneak peek at what we’ve got in store for you!

This week, meet CHOP CHOP.

Don’t forget to check the Sonic Facebook page for one additional piece of concept art!

Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games releases on the Nintendo 3DS today in Europe, and this coming Tuesday in North America. Check out our launch trailer, and get excited to play!

We’re revealing new concept art for Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II each Friday, so you can get a sneak peek at what we’ve got in store for you!

This week, meet Scarabesque.

Don’t forget to check the Sonic Facebook page for one additional piece of concept art!

On February 2nd in 1994, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was released in the US, and it was dubbed “Hedgehog Day”. In the past few years, we’ve revived this Sonic holiday as a day for fan celebration, and some news and goodies for Sonic fans.

This year is no exception. We’ve got an extra special dose of concept art from Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II, and a couple “save the date” announcements for this summer. Although we’re not ready to talk about all of our plans for this year, we’ve got some great stuff in the works. I think it’s going to be a great year to be a Sonic fan.

From all of us at SEGA to all of you — Happy Hedgehog Day!

 Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II – Egg Serpentleaf

We normally do concept art on Fridays, but we’ve got a special extra for you on Hedgehog Day!

Save the Dates for Summer of Sonic and Sonic Boom 2012!

Fans of Sonic on both sides of the pond will have a chance to gather this summer, as Summer of Sonic returns to the UK and Sonic Boom returns to the US!

We’ll have plenty more details in the coming months about both fan gatherings, but we’re so excited about seeing all of you this summer that we just had to give you a special sneak peek at what we’re planning.

Summer of Sonic will be held in the London area on Saturday, July 7^th. This will be the fifth anniversary of Summer of Sonic – and we’re determined to make it the biggest and best show yet! SoS is an all-day event that celebrates all aspects of the Sonic franchise. ‘Zoned’ areas offer a range of different activities – budding artists can sit down at the fan art tables and compete in competitions, speed runners can challenge each other at the retro gaming pods, and the latest Sonic titles are available for fans to try before they’re even released.

Sonic Boom will be held in San Diego, CA on Friday, July 13^th (during San Diego Comic Con) at the House of Blues. We’ll have more information about ticketing in the future, but you will not be required to have a Comic Con badge to attend Sonic Boom. Hotels in the San Diego area fill up quickly for Comic Con, so if you will need a hotel room, we suggest that you book early and/or consult the San Diego Comic Con hotel page.

At the first Sonic Boom last year, fans had a chance to play Sonic Generations, get some great swag, enjoy a great musical performance from Crush40, and more. We don’t want to give too much away about what’s in the works for this year (at least, not right now!), but we’re aiming to make it a great time for Sonic fans of all ages. We hope you’ll come hang out with us, Sonic, and a bunch of Sonic fans!

On the Block

1.Sonic 20th Anniversary Steel Book

2.Sonic Colours Wii Limited Edition Pack (PAL Region)

3.Sonic the Hedgehog figure from ‘Sonic and the Black Knight’

4.Metal Sonic Mini Figure

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:

1. Log in to your Twitter account.
2. Click on the person icon and select Direct messages from the drop down menu.
3. You’ll see a pop up showing your Direct message history. Click the New message button, highlighted below.
4. In the address box, type the name or username (SEGA) of the person you wish to send a message to.
5. 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.

We’re delighted to announce a very special worldwide sale on Football Manager 2012 Handheld on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Today (Thursday) and tomorrow (Friday) you’ll be able to get the game at less than half-price meaning leading your favourite team to glory on the move has never been so affordable! So what are you waiting for?! To take advantage of this great offer visit the iTunes Appstore

Sale Price
$4.99 (Original Price $9.99)
€3.99 (Original Price €7.99)
£2.99 (Original Price £6.99)
AUS$5.49 (Original Price $10.49)

Football Manager 2012 Handheld gives you the chance to manage in 12 different nations, England Italy, Australia, France, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Scotland, Brazil, Holland Wales and Spain. You decide who plays and who sits on the bench, you’re in total control of tactics and substitutions as you follow the match live.

Along with the traditional way of playing the game, Football Manager Handheld on iOS gives you the option of ‘Challenge Mode’. This game mode offers you 4 short term scenarios to complete. For example, taking control of a team who are in the relegation zone at Christmas and guiding them to safety.

Happy Year of the Dragon — they say that every time a ghost bell rings, a Spiral Knight gets its wings!

This January 23rd saw the turning of the Chinese Zodiac calendar to the Year of the Dragon. There is more than enough fascinating lore to follow up on if you want to learn more about the Chinese Dragon, and to celebrate in Spiral Knights, we are having a promotion with Dragon Wings accessories!

Dragon Wings are delivered free with any $9.99 purchase of Crystal Energy (CE) in-game. You will receive a random set of wings — click here for more details!.

For those wondering: It is true that Chinese Dragons do not traditionally have wings (though they do have truly handsome whiskers). Consider this a West-meets-East hybridized celebration of the mythic creatures — and who can argue with wings when they look this good?

This promotion runs through February 13, 2012.

May all your loot drops this year be good ones!

We’re often asked about what we do at SEGA, and how to get a job here. Most people assume that we are all game programmers, or that you have to be a game programmer in order to work here. But that’s very far from the truth — there are many different types of jobs here.

I read a comment on one of our videos recently that they feel like the community team are the only ones that work at SEGA, because we’re the only people they ever see. And that really broke my heart, because we have so many great people who do incredible work… but it’s not something that you guys get to see, or something they’ll stand on camera and do an interview about.

In the past few years, we’ve made it a point to highlight our co-workers whenever possible. You might have seen some of our candid photos from shows like E3 or PAX, or been introduced to people when they’ve made guest appearances on our Free Stuff Friday videos. But this year, we’ve decided to take it a step further. Each month, we’ll be featuring one employee so you can get to know the different types of jobs here, and the different people doing them. These are the people working behind the scenes here at SEGA to, ultimately, make awesome stuff for you guys.

This month, we’re featuring Greg Ammen, who works in our media lab as a Video Editor. If you’ve seen any of our trailers, chances are very good that he worked on it. When we do let him out of the comfort of his ultra air conditioned media lab, he sometimes goes nuts and wields chainsaws at bloody nurses, like he did at our Rise of Nightmares event last year.

Tell us about yourself!
I was born in San Francisco, CA and was raised on just the other side of the hill from where the SEGA of America offices are located now. I graduated from Ex’pression College of Digital Arts with a Bachelor in Sound Engineering. After graduation, I worked for Hoff Productions, working  on several shows for the National Geographic Channel and Discovery Channel.

How long have you worked for SEGA, and why did you want to work here? 
I have been working at SEGA as a video editor for 4 years this February. I saw an ad on Craigslist for a video editor opportunity at an unlisted video game company, which turned out to be SEGA. The job grabbed my attention because, even though I came from an audio recording background, I was interested in editing video.

Tell us about your job – what do you do all day?
My day-to-day duties include assembling footage for ESRB submissions to get the rating on a game, creating trailers for use on the web, and capturing footage for use in trailers. I even get to put my audio background to use every once in a while when we need to record voice overs. When people find out that I work at SEGA they often remark that I must get paid to play videogames, I always joke that they don’t pay me to play games but they do pay me to watch others play while I capture the footage.

What’s your favorite thing about working at SEGA? 
The greatest thing about working at SEGA is being part of creative community of people at a company that has such a deeply rooted history in video games. I often have to step back and take it in that I now work at a company that helped to shape my youth with Sonic the Hedgehog, Jet Set Radio Future, Crazy Taxi etc.

What’s something about SEGA that you didn’t expect when you started working here?
I didn’t expect how much like being part of a family it is to work here. This is by far the largest company that I have ever worked for yet I feel like I know each and every person as a colleague and a friend.

What’s your favorite SEGA game or franchise?
My favorite SEGA game is definitely Sonic Generations. The team really did a great job of making the game similar in gameplay to older versions of Sonic games of my youth yet brought great new elements to it for the modern era.

What other games are you into? 
I am a huge fan of the Halo series in fact I am currently playing Halo Anniversary and really enjoying switching back and forth between the old and new graphics.

What superpower would you most like to have, and why?
If I had a superpower it would definitely have to be the ability to fly, and fly fast. Could you imagine traveling and never having to deal with TSA, delayed flights, and cramped planes? I know I should think of something grander but I’m a simple guy and would settle with the ability to get off work on a Friday and immediately fly off to Italy for the weekend.

How you do to help keep SEGA weird?
I help to keep SEGA weird by helping out with office pranks. My favorite one was when we filled our Creative Manager’s cubicle with pages and pages of crumpled up back issues of magazines we had around.  I’d guess we used at least 200 magazines. (Don’t worry, it was all recycled.)

What else would you like to share with SEGA fans? 
I’d like to let the SEGA fans know that every one of us at this company works very hard to give you fun, entertaining games. I am in the unique position to see almost every game that we release due to the fact that I handle the video capture of the ESRB submission process. I can tell you that whether it’s the product manager, production development, sales or even finance and legal person who comes in to play the game they are always extremely passionate about our products. In turn, I love seeing how passionate you, as fans, are about SEGA. Our community is loud and proud, and certainly doesn’t hesitate to let us know what they’re thinking.

We’re revealing new concept art for Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode II each Friday, so you can get a sneak peek at what we’ve got in store for you!

This week, we’re featuring a badnik called “Fullboar” – in both his black & white and colorized versions.

Don’t forget to check the Sonic Facebook page for one additional piece of concept art!

Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown is headed to PlayStation Network and Xbox 360 Arcade and this summer 2012 we’re giving you, the fans, a shot at adding in your mark on the upcoming game! The challenge: name opponent characters that appear within a special single player mode! Get creative, enter as many times as you like, and you could have your characters in a Virtua Fighter game for all time!

Submission Guidelines

Every contest comes with a few hoops to jump through and guidelines to be aware of. We highly recommend you look through our rules, located below this posting, and review all submission requirements. That said, this is what every entry should include:

The name of your Opponent – This name can be anything you like (up to 16 alpha-numeric characters only, spaces included), but it must not be something you don’t own the rights to. Be original!
Your Opponent’s tagline – Your battlecry! It can be two lines of text (alpha-numberic only) and up to 20 characters per line.
Your Favorite Virtua Fighter Character – Let us know which specific character this applies to, if you have one in mind. We can’t make any promises, but we’ll do our best to match your name and tagline to an appropriate fighter.
Enter by January 31st – It’s a quick turn around, so get cracking and send us your opponents!

Enter as many times as you like! – You have multiple chances to win.

Example!

Using the above image as an example, the Opponent’s name would replace Jacky Bryant’s name in blue and the battlecry would appear beneath it. Easy! Here is an example including character counts:

Johnny Johnson (14 total characters)
Watch out! (10 characters)
I am invincible! (16 total characters)

What Can I win?

Immortality! No, not literally, but you will get your opponent’s name and description into the Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown game – and that’s pretty freaking sweet. Good luck!

Official Rules for USA and Canada

Sega of America, Inc.
“Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown™”
Opponent Naming Contest
Official Rules

There is no purchase necessary to enter or to win.

1) Promotion Description: Sega of America, Inc. (“Sponsor”) is offering the “Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown Opponent Naming Contest” (the “Promotion”) and will award determine winners based on judging all eligible entries against the criteria established in these Official Promotion Rules. The Promotion begins at 12:00:01 PM AM US Pacific Time (“PT”) on January 25, 2012 and the deadline for submission of entries is 11:59:59 PM PT on January 31, 2012 (“Submission Entry Period”).

2) Eligibility: Promotion is open to all legal residents of the fifty (50) United States, the District of Columbia (excluding Puerto Rico) and Canada (excluding Quebec), who are 18 years of age or older at the time of entry (“Entrants”). Employees, officers and directors of the Sponsor, its parents, affiliates, subsidiaries, divisions, advertising, promotional, fulfillment and marketing agencies (collectively “Promotion Entities”), their immediate families (parent, child, sibling & spouse) and persons living in the same households of such individuals (whether related or not), are not eligible to participate in the Promotion. Void in Puerto Rico, all other US territories, Quebec and where prohibited by law, rule or regulation. All federal, state and local laws and regulations apply.

3) Creating your Character Submission: Create a name for a “Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown” character as well as two (2) different phrases or “battle cries” that your character would speak, (your “Character Submission”). Your Character Submission must: (a) be prepared in English and designated as either a male or a female personality; (b) consist of no more than sixteen (16) characters (including spaces) for the Character name and no more than twenty (20) characters (including spaces) for each of the phrases or battle cries; (c) be totally original, created by you, cannot be previously published or appear anywhere else and CANNOT contain any third party copyrighted material or otherwise infringe on the intellectual property or other rights of a third party; (d) be suitable for general audiences (i.e., may not be obscene or indecent, including but not limited to nudity, pornography, profanity or gratuitous violence); (e) not contain defamatory statements (including, but not limited to, words or thoughts that are widely considered offensive to individuals of a certain race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or socioeconomic group); (f) not include threats to any person, place, business, group or nation; and (g) not invade privacy or other rights of any person, firm or entity, and it must not in any other way violate any law or regulation.

4) How to Enter your Character Submission: Send an e-mail to communityteam@sega.com with “Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown” in the subject line. In the body of the e-mail include the following informational points (your “Entry”):

• Your first and last name
• Your age
• Your date of birth
• Your state/province
• Your e-mail address
• Your telephone number including area code
• The gender designation for your character; male or female
• The name you have created for your character
• The 1st character phrase or “battle cry”
• The 2nd character phrase or “battle cry”
• The name of your favorite Virtua Fighter™ character

There is no limit to the number of different times you can enter, however, each Character Submission must be new and completely different from any previous Entry you have submitted and each must be submitted as a separate e-mail Entry. By entering, you agree that you are assigning all ownership and usage rights to your Character Submission to Sponsor in exchange for no compensation of any kind.

5) Judging and Winner Determination: Entries will be judged by a panel of marketers from Sponsor (“Judging Panel”) and will be judged and weighted equally on the following points: (a) originality; (b) creativity; and (c) content relevance to the theme of “Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown.” Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify any Character Submission it deems to be highly similar to any other Character Submission made by an earlier Entrant. The Judging Panel will determine up to fifty (50) winners in the female character category and up to fifty (50) male character winners. At Sponsor’s sole discretion, if an inadequate number of entries or entries of inadequate quality are received, Sponsor reserves the right NOT to determine any entries as winners or to determine any number of winners fewer than fifty (50) in each of the respective categories. The decisions of the judging panel in all matters relating to this Promotion are final. Judging will be completed on or about February 9, 2012.

6) Acknowledgment: Winners will be notified by the e-mail address associated with their entry that their Character Submission has been determined a winner and will be featured in the production of the upcoming game release of “Virtual Fighter 5 Final Showdown.” There is no monetary value associated with this acknowledgment and the number of entries determined as winners for use in the game is at the total discretion of the Sponsor and its Judging Panel.

7) General: If, during any period of the Promotion, for reasons beyond the Sponsor’s control (including, but not limited to, tampering or computer virus infection), the Promotion is not capable of running as originally planned, the Sponsor, at its sole discretion, reserves the right to cancel or modify the Promotion, without liability and to the extent feasible, will determine winners among entries received prior to cancellation or modification. Sponsor is not responsible for Internet, computer hardware and software, phone, and other technical errors, malfunctions, and delays. Entries that are incomplete, inaccurate, irregular, or otherwise not in compliance with these Official Rules, are void. All Entrants agree to comply fully with each provision in these Official Rules. Any person attempting to defraud or in any way tamper with this Promotion and any person who does not comply with these Official Rules, will be ineligible and may be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Without in any way limiting, expanding or amending the Terms of Service at http://www.sega.com/legal/terms.php which Terms of Service policy shall remain in full force and effect, if Sponsor is duly notified that any element of an Entrant’s Character Submission infringes upon the rights of another person and/or receives a legally valid request to remove the affected Character Submission because of such infringement, such Character Submission may be removed and disqualified from the Promotion, as Sponsor may determine in its sole discretion. Further, no Entrant will be named a winner unless Sponsor determines, in its sole and absolute discretion, that such Entrant’s Character Submission has been or can be sufficiently cleared for legal purposes and such Entrant has complied with the terms of these Official Rules.
Past experience has shown a promotion such as this one may generate similar submissions which closely resemble concepts and ideas developed by the Promotion Entities whether before, during or after the Promotion. Entrants may see a presentation that seemingly incorporates an idea or concept or includes materials similar to that contained in their entry (e.g., Character Submission). Any similarity may be purely coincidental and is always unavoidable in light of the volume of ideas that the Promotion Entities routinely consider in the course of their content development. Consequently, the Promotion Entities must, and have adopted policies and procedures to protect themselves from potential liability and claims and as part of these Official Rules requires all Entrants (and, if eligible minors, their parents or legal guardians) to agree that: (a) the Promotion Entities may use any and all ideas, concepts, material and expression, in whole or in part, submitted or contained in a Promotion entry, or other material you submit, including, without limitation, the Character Submissions and all copyrights and other intellectual property rights therein anywhere in the world in perpetuity; and (b) all entries and entry materials (including, without limitation, the Character Submissions) become the property of Sponsor and will not be returned.

Right to Use Your Work and Information About You: By participating, you: (a) represent and warrant that your Character Submission is wholly original, not previously published, and does not incorporate or include anything that is owned by any third party or would require the consent of any third party and your Entry does not violate any copyright, trademark, publicity right, privacy right or any other right of any third party; (b) automatically grant to Sponsor a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable license to use, reproduce, create derivative works from, modify, publish, edit, translate, distribute and display your Character Submission; (c) agree that upon selection as a winner, you agree that your Character Submission shall legally be considered a “work made for hire,” with all rights therein, including, without limitation, the exclusive copyright, transferred to and being the property of Sponsor; (d) in the event your Character Submission is considered not to be a “work made for hire,” you irrevocably assign to Sponsor, all right, title, and interest in and to your Character Submission (including, without limitation, the copyright) in any and all media whether now known or hereafter devised, in perpetuity, anywhere in the world, with the right to make any and all uses thereof, including, without limitation, for purposes of advertising or trade; and (e) agree that by entering your Character Submission, you grant to Sponsor the right to sell and otherwise distribute your Character Submission on any of its websites or in any of its products without any compensation. The rights granted under this paragraph shall extend to Sponsor and its indirect and direct parent companies and their respective affiliated companies with respect to all entries and all other submitted materials related to the Promotion, including those submitted by non-winners and winners.

By submitting a Character Submission, you grant to Sponsor, its parent and affiliated companies the right, except where prohibited by law, to use your name, likeness, picture, address (city and state), voice, biographical information, the Character Submission in your entry and written or oral statements, for advertising and promotional purposes in promoting or publicizing Sponsor, its products or services, without compensation unless required by law. You shall have no right of approval, no claim to compensation, and no claim (including, without limitation, claims based on invasion of privacy, defamation, or right of publicity) arising out of any use, blurring, alteration, or use in composite form of your name, picture, likeness, address (city and state), e mail address, biographical information, or entry. The rights granted under this paragraph shall extend to Sponsor, its parent, and affiliated companies with respect to all Entrants in the Promotion, including non-winners and winners. Sponsor, however, does not have any obligation to use the winning or non-winning entries for any purpose.

9) Release of Liability and Issues of Law: By participating in the Promotion, all Entrants release Sponsor and its indirect and direct parent companies and their respective affiliates, partners, subsidiaries, officers, directors, agents, employees and all entities associated with the development and execution of this Promotion from any and all liability with respect to and in any way arising from (i) participating in this Promotion, (ii) any injury or damage to an Entrant’s or third person’s computer related to or resulting from the Promotion, and (iii) damage to a user’s computer system (including, without limitation, any server failure or lost, delayed or corrupted data or other malfunction) due, either directly or indirectly, to an Entrant’s participation in the Promotion or downloading of information in connection with the Promotion. The Sponsor reserves the right to modify or cancel the Promotion in the event that any portion of any website used to administer any aspect of the Promotion becomes technically corrupted.

All Federal, state and local laws and regulations are applicable. THE CALIFORNIA COURTS (STATE AND FEDERAL) SHALL HAVE SOLE JURISDICTION OF ANY CONTROVERSIES REGARDING THE PROMOTION AND THE LAWS OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA SHALL GOVERN THE PROMOTION. EACH ENTRANT WAIVES ANY AND ALL OBJECTIONS TO JURISDICTION AND VENUE IN THOSE COURTS AND HEREBY SUBMITS TO THE JURISDICTION OF THOSE COURTS. The Promotion is void where restricted or prohibited by law.

10) Winners List: Winners will be announced at blogs.sega.com on or about February 9, 2012.

11) Sponsor: Sega of America, Inc., 350 Rhode Island Street, STE 400, San Francisco, CA 94103.

12) Promotion Administrator: Extra Mile Marketing, 16611 N. 91st Street, STE 106, Scottsdale, AZ 85260-1523.

SEGA is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. SEGA, the SEGA logo, VIRTUA FIGHTER and VIRTUA FIGHTER 5 THE FINAL SHOWDOWN are either registered trademarks or trademarks of SEGA Corporation. All Rights Reserved.