>>532691920
>>532696031
To add to this, I recall Sonic Adventure 2 actually uses the term 地 which is also vague since it can be used for earth or any earth-like (life-supporting) planet, or the planet surface which makes sense in context. They should have just translated it as "the planet" but hindsight is 20/20.
So in summary...
>Planet Mobius was the original name of Sonic's planet after all, which even made it in the Japanese Sonic Spinball manual
>Japanese don't seem to like incorporating the Western-media name when they can help it (see "Planet Freedom") and by the Adventure games the planet's name is unmentioned in Japanese
>but it's translated as "earth" and around this time earlier translations of the Sonic manual stories circulate which also use this as the translation
>this causes the misconception that Sonic's planet was always originally called "Earth" in Japanese, and otaku are groomed into hating the name Mobius
>this continues until around the Archie reboot where Sega decides it's now a good time to call it... Sonic's world
>this is the suckiest name they could have come up with so they eventually say fuck-it and appease the little otaku vermin who don't actually know Japanese