Sega Tests New Sonic The Hedgehog Coin Pusher “Sonic Balloon Carnival” With Round1USA

This year marks the 35th birthday of Sonic the Hedgehog, with Sega just beginning to rollout their announcements commemorating the blue blur’s anniversary in recent weeks. We already saw one of those start to breach the arcade zone of interest back in February with the Arcade1Up Sonic cabinet intended for homes, but today, we have had news come through of a real arcade machine… albeit not a fully fledged video game, as some may prefer. Still, the Sonic name will always be a good draw, and nowhere else has covered this new piece yet – so let’s take a look at Sonic Balloon Carnival.

NOTE: The game discussed in this post is on location test, which is the arcade industry equivalent of a beta test. The final product may differ significantly from the final production release – if the game passes the test and reaches production. Special thanks to Ryte and Ted for the tip off and information, plus Jojobii for the photos you see here!

Sonic Balloon Carnival

First, a little bit of background information that links to this piece of news. A few months after the shock revelation that Maimai DX was receiving location tests in the US in 2024, it was a small surprise for us to learn that over in the UK, Sega were also testing out one of their Japanese medal games – Jackpot Circus, a four player coin pusher with screens – in a localized capacity as Balloon Circus. This unusually stuck around for a few months, but whilst Maimai ended up releasing in North America the following year, we didn’t hear anything more about that medal game (if it tested again, we missed it).

Now, it appears that this would be because the title has since been retooled to instead feature Sonic… and now incorporate trading cards, with the new game going on test at a Round1USA location (who have been closely collaborating with Sega on this) for a limited time until late May:

From the looks of the photos we have been given, the original Jackpot/Balloon Circus base cabinet design has been sufficiently rethemed around the famous hedgehog, including the addition of ticket-to-card redeem stations for each player. Obviously much of the gameplay here centers around the coin pusher and bagatelle/plinko ball drop mechanics, but there is also a shared video screen (used by both players on each side) to see Sonic levelling up through those, which should add some character that static artwork lacks.

As for the new trading card element, it’s not surprising they’ve introduced this, given the IP at hand and how popular pushers paired with cards have been for other companies (Sega haven’t really done anything of this sort beforehand). Ever since Elaut’s The Wizard of Oz really broke that combo some time ago, there’s been a constant stream of similar pieces. Going off of the images of them, the cards here carry through the ‘Classic Sonic’ artwork seen with the game itself (which apparently derives from Sonic Superstars).

As can be seen here, this test features a set of 20 cards, with five groups of four collectable for a full set completion. Alongside this is a ticket redemption mechanic; normal card wins award 40 tickets, rare cards award 400, and a full set can be registered in-game for a 5000 ticket bonus. The cards are dispensed with five ball deposits into the pockets on the plinko boards, or five in-game medal collects. This is a little deeper than what we’ve come to expect from some card/coin pushers, but the quality of the artwork on the cards (which are double sided – the other side has postcard destination-like art for Sonic levels like Green Hill) does look like a pretty decent hook for anyone who loves both Sonic and playing these games.

Again, it will possibly be a little disappointing for fans that this isn’t a true blue video game, but it’s easy to forget that not all Sonic arcade releases have been successful (SegaSonic The Hedgehog and Sonic the Fighters never set the world alight back in the day – then good luck at having anyone remember SegaSonic Bros.), nor have all of his other arcade entries been video games to boot.

Having said that, this does follow a currently popular formula of combining a pusher with collecting cards based on a popular IP, and perhaps it could open the door to more movements with the series in arcades, especially if it tests well and hits mass production. Also, don’t discount there being games for it in other arcade genres either – some strong, now all-but-confirmed rumors in pinball indicate that it won’t be long before the hedgehog will be finally getting his first game for that arena too…

For now, what do you think of Sonic Balloon Carnival?

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