Sega announced Friday that the "Sonic Mega Collection" would come out this November for the GameCube. This is some what a surprise since Nintendo was Sega's rival in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Sega abandoned the console market in a surprise announcement last year. Sega then announced that it would be working exclusively as a publisher of video games after the Dreamcast, failed to gain market share from both Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo 64.

This Sonic collection from Sega will include seven games: "Sonic the Hedgehog" 1, 2 and 3; "Sonic & Knuckles;" "Sonic 3D Blast;'' "Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball" and "Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine."

The Sonic character is a blue hedgehog with spiked hair who rolls into a ball and travels at high speed, who was first introduced on the Sega Genesis console, which was the company's answer to the then dominant NES and Super Nintendo systems.

Sonic is something of a mascot for Sega, though perhaps not to the level of the "Mario" on which Nintendo built its fortunes.

Sega's "Sonic Adventure 2 Battle" has been an excellent seller for Sega on the GameCube platform, whose primary target is children in their early teen years and younger. Sega captured this audience with the Sonic series, in the game's heyday.