Despite Sonic the Hedgehog being a gaming icon created by a Japanese company, the franchise itself has had little to zero selling power in its home market. Not a single mainline (platforming) Sonic game has crossed the 1 million sales mark in Japan, with the highest selling game being Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast, having sold nearly 500k copies:
In fact, SEGA hardware itself has done just as poorly in its home region despite having considerable success in other regions:
http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/
SEGA had a definite advantage over Nintendo in the West during the 90's because of their "hip/edgy" image which gave them a great amount of sway in that market. However, I feel at the same time it failed to appeal to Japan the same way it did America or Europe.
Can anyone offer more insight into this?
