Sonic the Hedgehog 3: Limited Edition

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

This page or section needs more images. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough pictures. Please fix this. Specifically: Add scans of the magazine articles.

While Sonic 3 released in most regions in February 1994, its Japanese release was not until May 27. In the June 1994 issue of Famitsu, Sega explains that the intention was to release a 24 MiB (3 MB) version of the game in Japan, but that many shops in Japan had started importing and selling Western copies of the game, resulting in Sega of Japan opting to release the standard 16 MiB version instead. This 24 MiB version was previously stated to be planned in the March 1994 issue of Beep!, which also stated it would include more Zones.

The "24 MiB version" is presumably in reference to Sonic the Hedgehog 3: Limited Edition (also known as Sonic 3+ in the notes for Sonic Mars, dated May 1994), which would've had the content from both Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles on a single cart. The earliest mention of this special version comes from the February 1994 issue of the German Sega Magazin, and the last official mention comes from Mean Machines Sega in October 1994, where they mention it was scrapped due to price concerns.