Sega
There’s a certain type of person this gift guide is for. The type who had a Mega Drive stacked up under the TV. The type who can recall the boot up noise of a Saturn from memory like other people remember the lyrics to songs. The type who still thinks Sonic was cool (before everyone told them he wasn’t cool) and who is not, in fact, incorrect. Buying for that type of person can be very easy, or agonisingly difficult depending on how diligently you go about it. We like to do things properly so allow us to make it easy for you.
If you grew up playing games in the late eighties and nineties Sega hold a unique and fond position in your memory. It was never just about the consoles. Sega was a mindset, a colour scheme, maybe a dispute you got into at school over whether Blast Processing was an actual thing. Sega may have ultimately lost the console race but it never lost our hearts and now those hearts are grown up with wallets and an immense gratitude for people who remembered why they loved Sega in the first place.
That’s who we’ve hunted these gifts for. We’ve steered clear of the tacky stuff, the bullshit stuff and anything that just dropped a Sonic logo on a phone case and called itself a day. Every item in this guide was chosen because it feels like it was made with Sega fans in mind. Not lazy fandom that thinks Sonic the Hedgehog and Nights into Dreams are the same thing, but fans who can actually tell you the difference between a Master System and Mega Drive, fans who can recite a Shining Force character cast list from memory and fans who still form strong opinions about Jet Set Radio. We care about these things because the person you’re buying for cares about these things.
Essentially what we’re doing is saving you a lot of leg work. There are two factions for Sega merchandise. There’s the rubbish stuff you’ll find on every other licensing site and then there’s the good stuff. Art made with care by people who obviously love Sega just as much as you do. We care about the stuff in the latter faction and we have done all the research so you don’t show up to Christmas or a birthday with a gift they already own or something that silently mocks just how important all of this stuff is to them. These gifts hit because they understand.