Sonic Will Be Fixed Over Time, Sega Says

Back in the day, there were very few iconic video game characters – from Mario to Link, things were pretty standard – but Sega's Sonic was a hot up-and-comer that quickly gathered around him a lot of quality titles, particularly side-scrollers that emphasized his speed.

However, as technology advanced and Sega's dedicated Sonic Team began to wonder just how the small animal would fare in other genres, things got downhill quite fast. As the years passed, the blue hedgehog became more and more worse for wear and lost a lot of his fans.

Sega America's vice president of marketing, Sean Ratcliffe, talks about what Sonic needs in terms of games and how the Japanese company can restore it to the glory of yesteryear. As such, he revels that, even though plans are already made, it will take time.

“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,” Ratcliffe says.

He then tackles Sonic Unleashed, a game that was seemingly scheduled to breathe new life into the old Sega mascot, but ended up very annoying for old-time fans of the small animal. “Interestingly, I think Sonic Unleashed was very well received by the kids. There was some talk about the werehog aspect, the slower pacing and more combat-oriented gameplay, but when we go out and test this stuff and sit down with the consumers, kids actually like that,” Ratcliffe says.

He then adds, “I think older, die-hard Sega fans who grew up with the franchise and the first Sonic the Hedgehog associate Sonic more with 2-D side-scrolling super fast, and they liked the daytime gameplay, but when it came to the slower paced gameplay they were fairly critical of that, and that's fine – they have their opinions.”

Even though it might have won new fans with Sonic Unleashed, Sega definitely needs to sit down and think about the future of the blue hedgehog in order for him to remain in the public spotlight.