Sonic the Hedgehog Virtual Items-
All of the items here are virtual, meaning that they exist only in games or online areas and not in the physical world. You can see fan made and professional virtual items here. Usually in the case of fan-created things the engine to do it is in a professional game (such as customizing a character in a certain Sonic way) Everything from collectible icons to statues will be found here. What other sorts of virutal goods could turn up as the internet and games become more advanced? SonicGear will showcase them all.
Here's a video of another sort-of virutal item sort-of fan item. In the wrestling game GPW, you can really get in to style the fighters, with skin paint and head accessories. So, using the character creator, this fan has made a Sonic and an Espio fighter and you can watch them wrestle. Sonic vs Knuckles
and Shadow vs Vector are also available. All videos made by: ZRo22
Usually actual Sonic Games aren't covered on Gear, but these un-released characters are sort of like virtual items. This game is Sonic the Fighters Arcade (a console still remains in LasVegas USA) but most of them were in Japan. With very polygonal graphics, it was early 3D. However, several characters were left out of the final game. Now that the game's ROM has turned up it has become possible to explore the entire game, even the parts that no one was meant to see.
This is interesting, because you can see things that didn't make it in...thus "Virtual Items"! With this video you can see several, including another version of Metal Sonic, Eggman in a power suit, some kind of fatter Eggman...and a feature-fight with Honey The Cat. She appears to be an all-new character they just skipped over, unlike the other items which were just other versions of things that DID appear in the final. Video discovered by SugarCube123
Here are some Little Big Planet 'costumes'. They're buy-able add-ons for the game which make your sack-boy look like the Sonic characters seen at left. Since it's LBP...the characters are all re-styled to fit that style, with the button eyes, zipper, and large lower-face area. This rather abstract-ifies Eggman (bottom right). You can buy each one, or get the whole pack of them at once. People had already been making Sonic-like levels and items in the user-content creation & sharing part of the game (you can even see videos of that in the Video Entertainment area of SonicGear) so these costumes are a great virtual addition and will provide lots of fun for the fans! Discovered by Taaron
On the Xbox 360 you can create your own avatar, and customize it. Naturally, there are promotional items you can give to it, that tie into games. Here, you can see the selection of Sonic 4 virtual items. The first (at left) is a Sonic 4 logo t-shirt. Next, you can get a wind-up-toy Motobug badnik (see the winding key?) then, your Avatar can carry around a virtual Sonic plush. The next toy is a chop-chop fish wind-up, complete with bowl of water to jump out of. The last (and most difficult to see because it's super tiny anyway) is a Genesis style cartridge with the Sonic 4 logo. Shots by SegaBlog, discovered by Piplupfan77
You can get your Xbox 360 Avatar these great Sonic themed items for FREE if you own & play Sonic Adventure on the Xbox. If you play for 5 hours, you get the shirt which has the SA logo at the top, 'Sega' logo on the back, and Sonic on the corner. You get the shoes (they do have Sonic socks with them) if you play for 10 hours. These are great give-aways to help out your avatar, and anyone can wear it. Screenshot & earned by RaeLogan
The Vocaloid virtual singing idols have a game Project Diva, which a division of Sega makes. Here, you can see they've included this cute Sonic costume. It has big white gloves, blue pants (possibly with logo), Sonic red shoes & socks, and a Sonic spikes/ears hat. If this is Hatsune Miku...what did she do with all her hair to be wearing the hat? The costume is a fun addition. Screencap by: Chris
If a Sonic shirt isn't enough for your Xbox 360 Avatar (seen above) why not give it one of these Sonic mascot suit themed outfits! The suits are a promo /preorder bonus for Sonic Generations. But some are only available in certain areas. It's downloadable content...why restrict it by country?
It doesn't make sense because it doesn't need 'shipped' anywhere. You can get Sonic, Super Sonic & Classic Amy...but not all 3 at once. (interesting they chose Classic Amy too...the Sonics you can't really tell apart modern/classic) Discovered by NeoGaf
This is "Sonicman" some sort of NPC (apparently) is he in Sonic '06 somewhere? It looks like he is. He is wearing visor style sunglasses, a Sonic spikes hat, and a Sonic 1 logo tee with bluejeans. His dialogue seems to be "I saved Princess Elise & I fight bad guys, I'm the superhero SonicMan". He may be an ordinary human/npc but his Sonic themed attire still counts as virtual Sonic items. Discovered by TheEmperor.
These are Tweet Cards from "Sonic Tweet". It is a twitter application made by Sonic Team as part of the 20th anniversary celebration. It was at: (http://sonic-tweet.jp/login/index.html). It is all in Japanese and was not intended for western audiences, however it is so cool, there is a ton of Brittish and American users on the app. What it is, is it has sprite animations of Sonic chasing Dr. Robotnik through Green Hill Zone. When the user types in a tweet, Sonic will spindash Robotnik and his life bar will go down. Sonic has a limited number of dashes but they regenerate after a half hour. Once Robotnik's life bar is finished his Egg-o-matic blows up and you are rewarded with a
card. There are five hundred different cards to collect, each one sporting artwork from 35 different Sonic games. The more you beat Robotnik, the more experience you gain and you get to a higher level. With each new level, Robotnik will drive a different contraption from either Sonic 1, 2, 3, CD, & knuckles. It is highly addictive and cards are pretty cool.
This is a selection of 8 of the cards to give an idea of what they were like.
The application was closed at the end of 2011. (card submissions closed too, as their art is available elsewhere and they are virtual items) Info & card photos by SonicToast
Usually ads or webpages don't count as virtual items.
This Macy's one makes an exception because of the unusual nature of the item (a parade float balloon) and how much they featured Sonic in it/on it when Macy's usually has nothing at all to do with Sonic. This is a screen capture of their website/ad area for the Thanksgiving Day parade, made to look like little icons from it are floating up out of the screen. You can spot their special stars that appear every year, the sock monkey and that ancient clown thing that always shows up in the parade. But, despite having lots of other famous characters, you see Sonic in the ad, and also as a floating icon thing. Screenshot by: MarioAndSonicLover
With the release of Sonic 4, Episode 2, the Xbox 360 gets some special virtual items to celebrate. They're all Avatar stuff, like a Tails costume with wierdly small tails, a "little animals container" with button on top that contains some Flicky Birds (not chao, as it looks like here) There's also a half-pipe type thing for your avatar to stand around
in, and some remote control toys for it to play with. You can see the Metal Sonic one there with the antenna on top of its head. It's nice to see Xbox always doing a good selection of things to help promote the games. Discovered at NeoGaf, photo by Xbox.
This is a selection of large virtual statues that appear in an online game to celebrate Sonic's 22nd birthday!
Sonic Team once made a game called "Phantasy Star Online". It was a MORPG that took place in space on an alien world. You could customize your character and learn the plot while playing with friends. You'll see similar figures to this in the Phantasy Star Universe screencaps on Virtual Items 1. Since PSO2 is a sequel (though not worked on by much/if any of Sonic Team) it still celebrates Sonic's birthday.
On board the Arks ship, citizens can observe giant fun Sonic statues! In the main shopping plaza/atrium seen above, there's a huge hovering statue of Sonic. Below that in a deck area is an Amy & a Tails statue. In the lower utility deck you can find an Eggman & Knuckles. The statues all slowly rotate so you can observe all sides. (inset). While these statues appear, it plays "Escape from the City" over the public speakers on repeat. For the sense of scale, android in the image is about 7 feet tall.
Note: during the Sonic 2013 birthday, the game was not available for world-wide release. Anyone who wanted to play had to bust into the Japanese servers and use a translation patch. I did, to report with these screenshots!
Statues weren't the only things to appear in June 2013. They also gave out masks (via a scratch off lotto system) that you could put on your character to dress up. Here, a bikini wearing woman with Hatsune Miku promotional hair wears an Eggman mask for a wacky look! She's also got a coffin lashed to herself on a chain (behind her) and angel wings on her back. Here, she's raving with glowsticks to the tune of Escape from the City.
Ecclectic? Yes. The space-faring people, Arks, pretty much dress however they want for fun. There were Sonic, Tails, Amy, Chao, Eggman & Knuckles masks.
The space ship deck has a huge movie screen. Here, above the Tails statue, you can see the screen explaining the smaller, virtual statues you can buy/win for your virtual room. Statues of each character were made, so you can collect Sonic virtually too!
This is a photo from an ariel camera at a virtual concert by a virtual idol going on in the PSO2 game. (2 layers of virtual!) Kuna the idol (on stage) sings a song while citizens watch. (You can where's waldo me in the shot too though it isnt difficult) This gives the sense of scale for the ship and the Sonic character statues. That emblem in the corner says "Live Broadcast" in the alien language.
