At the
Tokyo Game Show in early 1997, Sega announced Project Sonic, a promotional campaign aimed at increasing market awareness of the
Sonic the Hedgehog brand.
Yuji Naka, the co-creator of Sonic, said that "phase one" would introduce
Sonic Jam as a compilation of games with several improvements rather than being direct ports. At the time of the show, the game was "88% complete". According to Naka, the purpose of Project Sonic was not only to increase consumer awareness but also renew excitement for Sega, as
Sonic the Hedgehog was only initially successful outside of Japan. Development began after the Japanese release of
Nights into Dreams in July 1996, after
Sonic Team received letters from fans asking who Sonic was. The Sonic creators, Naka and
Naoto Ohshima, thought it was important to introduce people to Sonic. Sonic Team had not worked on a
Sonic game since
Sonic & Knuckles in 1994; other
Sonic games had been developed by teams including
Sega Technical Institute (STI) Naka thought Sonic Team needed a period to "recharge our batteries" and had new ideas. "Sonic World" was part of an experiment to see how a
Sonic the Hedgehog game would work in full 3D. It served as a prototype for the first fully 3D
Sonic game,
Sonic Adventure, which began development for the Saturn but was released on its successor, the
Dreamcast, in 1998. "Sonic World" uses the same engine as
Nights. Naka's refusal to share the
Nights engine with the STI team developing
Sonic X-treme—a factor in that game's cancellation—may have been motivated by his preference for Sonic Team to create an original 3D
Sonic game. Naka later expressed relief that
X-treme was cancelled. Naka and Ohshima said the most difficult process was gathering information to include in "Sonic World", as there were many
Sonic games they had never heard of. == Game.com version ==