Its success helped Sega become one of the leading video game companies during the fourth generation of video game consoles in the early 1990s. Naka, Ohshima, and Yasuhara developed the first Sonic game, released in 1991 for the Sega Genesis, to provide Sega with a mascot to compete with Nintendo's Mario. The franchise also incorporates printed media, animations, feature films, and merchandise. The main Sonic the Hedgehog games are platformers mostly developed by Sonic Team other games, developed by various studios, include spin-offs in the racing, fighting, party and sports genres. The franchise follows Sonic, an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog who battles the evil Doctor Eggman, a mad scientist. Sonic the Hedgehog is a Japanese video game series and media franchise created by Yuji Naka, Naoto Ohshima, and Hirokazu Yasuhara for Sega.
