First Print - Sonic the Hedgehog - which?

[Avidgamerz | 0]

Wondering if there has been any research on which copy of Sonic the Hedgehog is considered first print? Back of the game has variants with the following:

Made in Japan, Redwood City Address

Made in Japan, South San Francisco Address

Printed in Japan, South San Francisco Address

I’ve excluded the K-A variants as they were likely later. Thoughts?

[DefaultGen | 5,436]

Dunno if the Sonic people ever figured anything else out, but there's a Printed in Japan copy with a receipt from before Sonic 1's "release date" (I don't know that Sonic 1 had a real release date, but June 23 is the unsourced one floating around). If it's not the first, it's at least tied for first as far as I'm concerned.

Edited April 20, 2022 by DefaultGen

[Avidgamerz | 0]

3 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

Dunno if the Sonic people ever figured anything else out, but there's a Printed in Japan copy with a receipt from before Sonic 1's "release date" (I know that Sonic 1 had a real release date, but June 23 is the unsourced one floating around). If it's not the first, it's at least tied for first as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks, yea leaning toward south San Francisco as the likely first offices. Before Redwood City.

segaretro has the south San Fran offices listed as in use 1986-1989

https://segaretro.org/Sega_offices

[AlternatorDelux | 61]

On 4/20/2022 at 6:40 PM, DefaultGen said:

Dunno if the Sonic people ever figured anything else out, but there's a Printed in Japan copy with a receipt from before Sonic 1's "release date" (I don't know that Sonic 1 had a real release date, but June 23 is the unsourced one floating around). If it's not the first, it's at least tied for first as far as I'm concerned.

This probably isn't too unusual, since games with hard release dates were still the exception at the time and stores tended to start selling copies whenever they got them.  Still a good indication of it being from the first run.

[DaddyMulk | 64]

I preordered my copy a few weeks before release and picked it up on 6/23/91. Mine is South SF, Printed in Japan.