There is the group of Sonic fanboys who have started a petition to boycott Sonic 4... by purchasing Sonic 1 on the date of release. So basically, they're just throwing money at Sega. How nice.
Here's the actual petition from the idiots themselves.
Fans of the sonic series are like most sega fans, we want their old games brought back to the glory days when sega was pretty much the power in video games. Seeing the gameplay of sonic 4 has made many of us realize what we already knew, Sonic 4 will simply not be anywhere near as good as the original sonic games. Either way, We will decide to finally show sega what the fans truly want. A real sonic 4, as long as sonic 4 stays the way it is, we will not buy it, we will in fact buy sonic 1 on release in protest of sonic 4, till we end up with a re tool, or change, we want sonic in hd, not sonic RUSH HD. We will not buy a future sonic game, till we get a true successor to sonic 1/2
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3178122
So, these so called "fans" are pissed just because of TWO FREAKING SECONDS of gameplay footage? That is just pathetic.
Now, I may not have been in the Sonic fanbase for as long as others, but even I know that they're going too far. We don't know if the game will be good or bad. There's nothing to based that on.
Besides, why are they getting pissed now? They've been using the same design for years, so why now? Plus, why Sonic 1? What about Sonic 2 or Sonic 3 & Knuckles? Those two games have a more improvements over the first game. This is just very humiliating to the Sonic fanbase.
To those who are smart and are actually waiting for the game and not basing their opinion on the look of the game, I applaud you. I just really want this cycle to end. They've taken the Sonic Cycle too far.