Sega World Tour '91

Sega World Tour '91


Date: 1991-09-13 – 1991-11-01
Location: United States
Attendance: 26,000^[1]^[2]
Licensor: Nickelodeon

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Sega World Tour '91 was an American promotional tour held to promote the newly-released Sega Genesis in the States. Sponsored by Nickelodeon, the tour began in September 1991, with the company holding events in 25 American shopping malls across the country. Holographic arcade game Time Traveler was demonstrated, and Sonic the Hedgehog was in attendance.^[1] There were also competitions, including winning a day trip for four to Nickelodeon Studios at Universal Studios, Florida, or a 1991 Jeep Eagle.^[3]

History

The primary purpose was to drive home a message it had delivered at Summer CES 1991, where the company put a Genesis running Sonic the Hedgehog next to a Super NES running Super Mario World and invited people to choose their favourite. Sega's (likely biased) polling from the World Tour suggested 88.84% prefered Sonic compared to 11.16% for Mario, of a sample size of roughly 26,000 8-14 year olds.^[1]^[2] This 9:1 ratio led to Sega claiming they had the most popular video game system at the time. The Game Gear also came out favourably to the Game Boy.

Destinations

Sega ran three tours simultaneously,^[3] spending three days in each region of the country. Despite its name, Sega did not tour the world with this concept, or even leave the shores of the United States.