Sega Admits Sonic Has Been A Bad Hedgehog Lately
With a few exceptions, the majority of Sonic The Hedgehog’s video games have been lackluster since the game industry transitioned to polygons and 3D planes. A sizable amount of people are Sonic fans, yet haven’t purchased an actual Sonic video game in a long time.
Sometimes it doesn’t seem like Sega is aware of how bad things have gotten, but they may be starting to wake up. Sega of America’s chief operating officer Chris Olson spoke with Polygon about the problem. While Olson emphasized the importance of attracting young gamers, he added “there’s still a very large-sized audience with old-school Sonic fans who grew up with the Genesis,” and that perhaps focusing on one market they’ve repelled the other. (The grown-ups are the ones who buy the games for their kids, after all.)
“We have an obligation to the fans of Sonic and the consumer,” Olson said. So while the company will continue to “[evaluate] different ways to bring cool experiences” based on Sonic, it will do so with an increased emphasis on combining “cool” with “quality.”
How will they reverse the downward spiral of Sonic? Well, giving upcoming games a longer development time could help. He admits some recent titles were rushed to market, and that the company doesn’t intend to make that mistake again. “Video game development is a pretty chaotic thing, and it’s important not to rush things,” Olson said, “because we want to be sure we’re bring out the most polished thing.”
Negative comments haven’t fazed them, but bad sales have: the latest game in the series, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, sold worse than any Sonic game previously.