Hooked on Sonics

That 16-bit speed freak Sonic the Hedgehog has an identity crisis. He used to be cool. Now that he’s all grown up, he’s turned into an asshole. He’s got a bad attitude, he’s always crashing into stuff (three dimensions doesn’t agree with him) and he continually disappoints his loyal friends.

Some might say he can’t stop reliving his glory days.

Simon Jeffrey, president of Sega of America, says it’s the other way around.

“Every Sonic game sells to the same audience, Jeffrey explained to me at the annual videogame industry confab, the Electronic Entertainment Expo. (I was, of course, on official duty at the time). “It’s mostly kids and a few insane fanboys who then spend the next three months of their lives writing us letters and complaining about it.” [Emphasis added]

That’s why he’s so excited for BioWare’s take on the Sonic franchise with Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. Jeffrey’s hope is that the game will introduce the blue hedgehog to new audiences and help rebuild his street cred. It’s a pet project.

“Sonic has always been a recruitment mechanism for the Sega brand,” he says. “I guess back in the Genesis days Sonic was the mascot, but I don’t really believe in mascots in the business today. Sonic is absolutely a recruitment mechanism.”

With Sonic Chronicles Jeffrey predicts a mess of folks who would never dream of buying a Sonic game will pick it up because it’s a “cool role-playing game.” “They’re going to realize that, ‘Hey, Sonic is not so bad after-all.” He has high hopes for the title and is expecting sales of around 1.5 million units in the United States. The typical Sonic game, he says, sells about 600,000 copies.

But it’s the kids who wind up falling in love with Sonic. “They love the character set, and the whole attitude and speed thing. Once we’ve got them hooked on Sonic (not in a bad way, but a good way),” jokes Jeffrey, “then hopefully we can hook them and their families on other Sega products and Sega lines.”

Getting hooked on Sonic worked for me.

With that said, I couldn’t resist asking Jeffrey about Smilebit.

Jeffrey says the developer was responsible for some of the company’s most successful games, but noted that Sega has had “mixed success” revitalizing its classic franchises. Nights comes to mind.

Nevertheless, “pretty much everything is on the table,” he says. “We’re looking at our arcade portfolio from the golden days and, absolutely, at Smilebit.” He says there’s nothing (well “probably nothing”) in development, but they’re “on paper.”

“Jet Set Radio is the most requested [franchise] update we get,” he confides. “I’d love to see another one too. If Samba de Amigo works for us, Jet Set Radio has a pretty good chance of coming back too.”

Also see:

Sega’s Quest for Cool
Sega Q&A:’We don’t want to be Activision’