Sonic Adventure, ChuChu Rocket! Voted into Smithsonian Art Exhibit

If you don’t think there remains a healthy audience for modern Sonic or the Adventure series, think again.

Judged from public voting, the Smithsonian Institution announced the list of included games for its coming Art of Video Games exhibit today, and Sonic Adventure, which featured the first incarnation of the green-eyed, “Modern” Sonic, was the only Sonic title to make the list.  SA even beat out the original 1991 Sonic the Hedgehog, while its competitor at the time, Super Mario World, made the cut.

It was not the only Sonic Team title that will be included, however.  ChuChu Rocket!, which was originally released in 1999 in Japan, also will be featured.  Sega’s Shenmue, another Dreamcast classic, made the cut as well.

Also noteworthy: Three titles in the Panzer Dragoon series, from 1996, 1998, and 2003, made the cut and were the only first-party Saturn titles to be included from that era.

The Art of Video Games will be on exhibition at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. beginning next March, through September 2012–pending, of course, overwhelming classic fan outrage that convinces the Institution to delay it and change two areas within.