Sega jingle

From Sega Retro

The Sega logo in Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Mega Drive, the first time the Sega jingle was heard in a video game.

Mostly due to its inclusion in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, Sega is known for having a two note "jingle" which typically plays alongside its logo. Consisting of two cords; E♭ Major (E♭, G, B♭; "Se") and C Major (C, E, G; "Ga"), the jingle fulfils two roles; to inform customers that what they're looking at is a Sega product, and how the word "SEGA" is meant to be pronounced.

The earliest known use of the jingle dates back to 1983 with Japanese television advertisements surrounding the SG-1000. It was used in virtually all Sega advertising from this point forwards, though consoles such as the Sega Saturn and Sega Dreamcast used their own identifiers. The jingle was officially replaced with a new one in 2005 and then again in 2014, (North America also had the "Sega Scream" which was also popular) however the 1983 version continued to appear in Sonic games and is still arguably the most recognisable.

Both the Sega Master System and Sega Mega-CD use a non-voiced version of the jingle when starting up, as do several Sega Mega Drive games. The first video game to include the fully voiced version was 1991's Sonic the Hedgehog, where the jingle alone is said to take up 1/8th of the cartridge's memory. Despite the advent of the CD-ROM and the ability to stream higher quality audio, it was not widely used in games after the demise of the Mega Drive, and was seemingly pulled from marketing campaigns by 1996.

Appearances in video games

Other variants

Some games play the jingle, but not with the full choir, or have a different voice actor sing the tune.

Other games, such as Puyo Puyo Tetris also feature the Sega jingle, but sung by different voice actors (in this case, every playable character in the game has their own recording).

References


Sega, the company
Company profiles | Harmony | History | Jingle | Scream | Logo | Offices | Souzou wa Inochi | Wakai Chikara
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