The 1999/2000 Sonic Adventure competitions

[Badnik Mechanic]

Back in September, I became aware of something called the European Sonic Speed Challenge, for a more indepth explanation of what it was, see this TSS post I just did. Now I've wanted to do that for a while just because not a lot of people have heard of it before.

 

Only... during my attempts to find photos of the prizes and other details... I found something even more interesting.

 

It turns out that during 1999-2000 Sega held a series of competitions that were quite major competitions in themselves, but from what I've found, they would also build up into one mega competition. Using the Dreamcasts online service for the original Sonic Adventure. Now because the old Dreamcast website is no more details of these are not easy to come by... well... I found this one website thats archived tons of the old updates. Including the competitions and the prizes... and I've gotta say, some of these prizes were quite epic, with some competitions having prizes which had values that exceeded $4000.

 

Some of the interesting ones.

 

Big the Cat Fishing Challenge: January 7th 2000:

 

It's a Fish Weight Attack with Big in Emerald Coast! Let's see who can reel in the biggest prize! We've changed the rules a bit so now you're playing for an overall! This means all you Sonic specialists need to be a bit more well-rounded, and I don't mean fat! Please read the official rules for details. As far as site news goes, today marks the end of the Sonic2k Contests for the US, while the European Sonic Speed Challenge lives on until the 14th.

 

Another post I found details several other events.

 

World Rankings: Knuckles Time Attack in Red Mountain is now entering the end of it's first week! Great times from everyone so far! Keep them coming! European Sonic Speed Challenge times are also very competitive, and the contest ends in January 14th! US players, get ready... Sonic2k part 3 opens tonight at Midnight! Take Tails on a romp through Sand Hill with AT&T and Dreamcast Magazine! And don't forget the download Event!

 

More events can be found here.

 

Now on the Big the Cat fishing challenge, I was able to find a link to a prizes page. WOW!

 

First Place
First Place trophy
Sonic Champion T-shirt
5 World Rankings Points

 

Second Place
Second Place trophy
Sonic Champion T-shirt
4 World Rankings Points

 

Third Place
3rd Place trophy
Sonic Champion T-shirt
3 World Rankings Points

 

Fourth to Tenth Place
Sonic Champion T-shirt
1 World Rankings Point

 

 

There was also the following at the bottom of the page.

 

The top 10 winners in each Sonic World Ranking Contest will accrue World Ranking Points as follows: 1st place = 5 points; 2nd place = 4 points; 3rd place = 3 points; 4th place through 10th place = 1 point.

At the completion of the Sonic World Ranking contests, the points will be totaled and the top 10 point earners will receive a complete set of Sonic Adventure plush characters (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Big, Amy and Chao) and a custom-made Sonic Jacket.

 

 

Additionally, the player who has collected all 130 emblems found in the Sonic game in the fastest time will be awarded a special trophy separate from the World Rankings trophy.

 

Approximate value of all prizes is $4,000.00 (US)

 

That $4000 will be based on 1999 sums so today thats a lot more.

 

Now the website I found all this information on is here... so give it a look over if theres anything you think will be of interest including what these world ranking points eventually built up into. Theres quite a lot of pages to go through but a lot of the links turn into 404 errors. But the main bulk of the info is there if anyone will find this of use?

[Linkabel]

Some of the prizes of that contest were being sold on Ebay some months ago.

[Badnik Mechanic]

You don't mean this do you?

 

 

Thats how I found out about the whole Reebok thing, but never seen the prizes for the other competitions they ran.

[Linkabel]

That's the one! One of the shirts was also available but later mysteriously disappeared.

 

There's also some videos of what the events (the AT&T and Reebok) were:

 

Makes me wish I had internet back when the Dreamcast came out.

Edited December 18, 2012 by Jaime Bond

[bmn]

I was all over the DLC at the time with my trusty 36.6k modem. 1p a minute, baybee. Those contests were legit. The stuff like the pumpkins and Christmas trees all over Station Square, not so much. The other DLC was voice files for the menus, which were eventually put into SADX as standard.

 

All the SA1 DLC is I believe still available via the Wayback Machine from one of the sites of the day, the Hidden Palace. Actually, that site had contact with TSS back when TSS was just starting; it was how I first discovered this place existed

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20010622011417/http://www.hpalace.com/site/dload/sa1.html

[Naysu]

wow cool, never seen anything like this, wish I had internet back then too... great stuff, thanks for posting

[MizukiMoon]

Ah man, I would totally pay the earth for one of those Sonic Champion T shirts They sound awesome! 

[iDEATH]

Anybody got a photo of the shirts?

[SonikkuForever]

Here's a picture of the shirt. It's a little plain for my taste, personally. A former Sega employee was selling it, and according to him, while they only gave out ten or so for the contest, there were quite a few boxes of 'em in the Sega offices, so many employees ended up with one.

 

 

I've also got the original VMU file for the Reebok DLC, which I will upload tomorrow.

Edited December 22, 2012 by SonikkuForever