Sega Admits that Sonic Just Isn’t What He Could Be
July 31, 2009 by Polt
Sonic the Hedgehog has changed quite a bit since his birth — he’s gone from the king of video games to something akin to an Olympic runner who had his legs cut off and is flopping around on the floor like a fish. And Sega knows that fish has been starting to stink.
Sean Ratcliffe is Sega of America’s Vice President, spoke with IndustryGamers on Sonic’s current less-than-respected status, and his comments could be disheartening to anyone hoping for the Blue Wonder’s victorious return.
“The quality is something that will be fixed over time. It’s not something where you wake up one morning and say, ‘You know what, we’re going to improve our quality on this franchise,’ and it magically happens. A lot of hard work goes into striving for quality.”
Strangely, smaller developers have no problem creating games of consistant quality. How Sega has repeatedly managed to fumble with their flagship franchise could be considered as a challenge to gamers to see how low they will go. Honestly, that’s probably not how it is, but creating a game with a combination of successful aspects of the series thusfar shouldn’t be that difficult.
Ratcliffe continued, mentioning how popular the recent Sonic games have been popular with kids. If nothing else, this is an indication of where the franchise will continue to go in the future: kid-friendly, broken games.
Sonic the Hedgehog has fallen so far, and it’s been a long tumble down that hill. The Sonic Team that once was is simply not with Sega anymore, and Yuji Naka is as far away from the series as possible.
The Sonic Advance games were the closest things we’ve gotten to the old school Sonic, and they just didn’t feel right. And it’s doubtful any Sonic game will anytime soon.
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i agree i mean sonic use to be so cool and use to be so fun to play now like a complete Disney like franchise that not even that fun anymore and made so many characters with sonic like powers it’s like they took the thrill from him
Sonic has not gone down hill. yes some of the games could be better but if your a true fan you’d love them anyway. ive been a fan for well over 10 years now and i hav’nt run into any problems with the games.