18 used & new from $49.98

See All Buying Options

Sell yours for a Gift Card
We'll buy it for $21.47
Learn More
Trade in now

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 2 images

The History of Sonic the Hedgehog Hardcover – January 3, 2013

by Udon Entertainment Corp. (Corporate Author), Les Editions Pix'n Love (Corporate Author)

53 customer reviews

See all 2 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Amazon Price New from Used from

Hardcover

"Please retry"

—

$141.98

$49.98

Hardcover
from $49.98 9 Used from $49.98 8 New from $141.98 1 Collectible from $99.95

Celebrating over 20 years as SEGA's official mascot, The History of Sonic the Hedgehog is the ultimate guide to SEGA's spiky blue speedster! This hefty 300-page hardcover volume covers in detail every 2D and 3D Sonic game, plus spinoffs and crossovers. You'll also find character profiles, promotional artwork, rare concept art, and a detailed look at the origins of the "Blue Blur".

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Sonic Scribes

61

Paperback
$11.66
Kurt Kalata

24

Paperback
$25.00
Patrick Thorpe

2,289

in Fantasy Manga
Hardcover
$17.85
Kip Ward

5

Paperback
Scott Pelland
Paperback
Capcom

42

Paperback
$52.23

NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

Product Details

Hardcover: 300 pages
Publisher: Udon Entertainment; 1St Edition edition (January 3, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1926778561
ISBN-13: 978-1926778563
Product Dimensions: 1 x 9 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #602,621 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #170 in Books > Arts & Photography > Other Media > Video Games
- #1262 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Pop Culture > Art
- #1660 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Video & Electronic Games

Would you like to update product info, give feedback on images, or tell us about a lower price?

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars

5 star		83%
4 star		15%
3 star		2%
2 star		0%
1 star		0%

See all 53 customer reviews

Share your thoughts with other customers

Write a customer review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful

Interesting story of SEGA and Sonic

By Parka TOP 50 REVIEWER on January 8, 2013

Format: Hardcover

Length: 1:25 Mins

More than 20 years have passed since Sonic made its first appearance in 1991. I still remember fondly how much I enjoyed playing the first three series of the game.

The History of Sonic Hedgehog is a befitting book that celebrates Sonic's 20th anniversary. It was originally published by Pix'N Love Editions in French and this English edition is published by Udon. It's a handsome 300-page hardcover with a nice cover. I really like the cute 2D art of Sonic on the cover as compared to the 3D version on the back cover.

The book covers roughly three main parts. The first looks at the history, the second on the games and the last part on characters and extras.

The history of Sonic is intermingled with the story of SEGA, before it was even known as SEGA (it was called "Service Games"). It's an interesting flashback to the creation of the Sonic through the accounts of the developers, and to the rise and fall of SEGA as a console maker, and the transformation into a multi-platform publisher.

The pages are beautifully laid out with wonderful photos and screenshots. There are photos of consoles I never knew existed. Three lengthy interviews included are with the creators Yuji Naka the programmer, graphic designer Naoto Oshima and producer Takashi Iizuka of Sonic Generations (2011).

The second part focuses on the games. There are eight 2D games, ten 3D games, sixteen handheld ones and 23 spin-offs over the span of two decades. I only played the first three games so I'm reading about the rest for the first time. Each game has a short but informative writeup. The screenshots are a bit small though. I wished there were more and bigger. Stage designs for the games are gorgeous.

The last section has all the main characters and their profiles.Read more ›

1 Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

A fantastic, high quality history book for Sonic fans

By Relytia TOP 1000 REVIEWER on January 13, 2013

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

For the past several months that I've had this book on pre-order, I've often wondered just what sort of book would it be when it finally arrived. Would this be an in-depth look at Sonic's real-life history as a video gaming mascot and the champion of Sega? Would this be an in-universe encyclopedia with entries on the characters, locales, and events in the Sonic series? Would it be more of a concept art book with cool commentary from some of the main people behind the Blue Blur? Turns out, it's all of these. As one who has been a massive fan of Sonic since his childhood, I think it's safe to say I am super happy with this book.

The book is broken down into several big sections with quite different focuses for each one. The first hundred pages or so goes into great detail about Sonic's real life history. Starting all the way back in the 1960's when Sega Enterprises was formed, to Sonic's inception as a character, all the way until the present, the book goes into great detail. It's a really fascinating read that gives a lot of insight into Sonic's history in the context of the bigger Sega picture, and the even bigger picture of the video gaming industry as a whole. Sonic is a trailblazer in many ways, and the history section of this book really makes you appreciate that. To end the history section are a series of really interesting interviews with some of the most important people behind Sonic, such as the ingenious Yuji Naka, arguably the father of Sonic, Naoto Oshima, the man who gave him his iconic look, and Takashi Iizuka, who has been his artistic director since Sonic Adventure. I love these kinds of interviews in books of this nature, and the quality of writing and information in this book is fantastic. I love it all. Great start.Read more ›

Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

Must buy for Sonic fans!

By Samantha Smith on January 4, 2013

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

I think every Sonic fan should add this book to their collection. I've been a Sonic fan for over 15 years and when I first heard about this coming out I immediately pre-ordered it. Warning: There's ALOT of pages so expect this book to take up a large portion of your spare time. It tells you everything and I mean EVERYTHING about what you need to know about Sonic. It tells you the history before and how Sonic was created, the rivalry between Sonic/SEGA and Mario/Nintendo, interviews with the creators (Sonic Team), what goes on during development, talks about all the 2D, 3D, handheld and spin-off games, Sonic ups and downs, cameos, all the characters from the games, never before seen artwork and sketches, etc There's a lot of reading but I'm going to enjoy every last page of it. I'm thinking about buying my 8 year old nephew this book cause he loves Sonic, too.

Highly recommend if you're a longtime Sonic fan like me or you're a new Sonic fan and you want to know all about Sonic and some of SEGA's history then you should pick this up.

Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

Perfect for Long-Time Sonic Fans!

By D. Centeno on January 26, 2013

Format: Hardcover

I heard about this book back in Summer 2012 and had wanted since it was finally released (after some push-backs). When I got my hands on it, I quickly read about some of the best games in the series - the original Mega Drive series, the Sonic Adventure Series, and the more recent games I own. I was amazed by the plethora of information; it was great! The very next day, I was telling my friends all of the cool trivia I learned, like how Shadow was originally intended to only appear in Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Colors evolved from Mario Galaxy and the Olympic Games series.

Here you have almost everything you might ever want to know about the Blue Blur. I enjoy reading the background information about the development of the games. My personal favorite section (so far) is the "Bonus Zone" of the history section. It features interviews with three of the developers of Sonic, including his designer who says "Dragon Ball" and Akira Toriyama were big inspirations in his life. If you quickly flip through the pages, you'll even notice it's like a flip book and Sonic does some of his signature moves!

Boasting aside, there are some setbacks. I have come across some minor punctuation errors (missing periods, etc.), but that can happen in any book. I'm a little disappointed that the first two games feature some screenshots at the top of their respective pages with the zones of the games, but this stops after Sonic 2. I know it would be troublesome to fit them in, since games like "Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing" only have half a page of information, but an index of some sort in the back with all of the levels would have been nice. Lastly, this being a translation of a French book, it says nothing about the American comics or television series.Read more ›

Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

See all 53 customer reviews (newest first)

Write a customer review

Most Recent Customer Reviews

I love this book

I love this book! I bought it when it first came out. There is a lot of information and the pictures are beautiful.

Published 3 months ago by Anna

Awesome

Published 9 months ago by Steffan Reid

Sonic's life to date! No boring information, just beautiful visuals...

Extensive book, filled with entertaining art, visuals that will keep you invested as you read. Written clear and precise no extra garble in between, thorough book chronicles the... Read more

Published 12 months ago by Martin

Perfect for any Sonic fanatic.

Great book with tons of information. Any Sonic aficionado would appreciate all of the content inside of the 300 pages of this masterpiece.

Published 13 months ago by Alison Stockwell

Very well done

My older brother loved Sonic as a kid, and he loved this book for his birthday. Great pictures, but the print is pretty small.

Published 14 months ago by Jami Kinyon

I like it but it's missing important info

Great representation of all things Sonic from the *games*. There's tons of stuff in this book including some games I never knew about. Read more

Published 17 months ago by C. FISCHER

Beautifully done!

The book is beautiful and worth every penny! It was clearly not cheap. My boyfriend loved it. It's his favorite book in his collection!

Published 17 months ago by Meghan

Great Book!

I bought this book for a friend and he loves it. The pictures in this book are very high quality and detailed.

Published 18 months ago by Rebecca Hernandez

THIS IS BEING REPRINTED AND WILL BE RELEASED IN JAN.2014

Do not buy from third-party selllers! This item is currently being reprinted and will be released Jan. 14th 2014! Just wait a bit, and it will be back up on Amazon next month.

Published 19 months ago by Anne

want this book

I really want this book just what every sonic fan needs and this book could also be for people who just got in to sonic games

Published 21 months ago by Andres LOPEZ