SEGA has published a new interview with Osamu Ohashi, Division Manager, and Sachiko Kawamura, General Manager of Design, in which they discuss the Sonic brand and its future. When asked how they want to grow the Sonic series in the future, he says that the character and games were created to compete with Mario, and they admit “they have yet to achieve that.” However, that goal has not gone away, and Mr. Ohashi says that the goal with the future of Sonic is to catch up to Mario and eventually surpass him. Here’s what was said, via DeepL.
How do you plan to grow Sonic in the future?
Ohashi.: To put it simply, I want to surpass Mario. Sonic was originally developed to compete with Mario, and we have yet to achieve that. Because we respect Mario, our goal is to catch up to and surpass him.
We want Sonic to be played all over the world, including Japan, just like Mario, and we want the movie to be a bigger hit than Mario. That is our goal as Sonic lovers.
They have had lots of opportunities since the 90’s and haven’t been able to surpass Mario nor any other Nintendo IP, what makes them think that this time is going to be different?
Sonic was more known as a character at some point during the 90’s in the US thanks to Sega’s marketing, but that didn’t last long.
Yeeeeah good luck with that, because it’s nowhere near to catch up, let alone surpass. Superstars was extremely boring and the lesa said about Frontiers the better.
Sonic’s gonna have to be faster then that
This sounds like a super funny joke, that aside Sega has drag sonic a whole lot so much that hoping for it to surpass Mario would be a pipe dream
Sonic 2 did over 400 million worldwide, that ain’t nothing. Sonic Frontier wasn’t as good as Odyssey, but it is just a new starting point for Sonic 3d games, they will get better. Plus they will be on multiple platforms with better graphics than Nintendo Switch 2, and a better online infrastructure. Either way just a fun quote, competition is good, glad both franchises are doing great.
By standards niwadays a movie that doesn’t make 500 million at the box office is a certified flop.
It’s nice to have dreams.
in this case a dream to laugh at.
It’s good to have dreams. Even during life or death.
Deceased don’t dream, how is that possible? 😑
What do you mean its possible? reincarnation?
SEGA themselves need to stop bringing sonic down then
Not trying to be funny or whatever, but they did once trying to surpass him back in the 2000s by trying to get ahead of him. I honestly understand, but what I’m hearing now that they trying to build something new and better for the Sonic franchise in order to surpass Mario. This could be a cool dream that we never forget.
I agree with you, a dream that we never forget…to laugh at…
🤣🤣 Thats hilarious, made me laugh when I read that headline.
Maybe if sega let Nintendo make a sonic game there’s a chance😄
or givin the taxman another chance.
And they had to bring the movies, even in that field (despite what critics said) Mario surpassed both sonic movies…both!!!
Not to shit on Sonic or anything, but I think it’s already too late for him to surpass Mario tbh.
The Sonic franchise has gained a reputation in recent years for mostly putting out a lot of games that are mediocre at best, and utter garbage at worst, especially since the mid 2000’s. I feel like it’s going to be extremely difficult for Sega to shake that reputation at this point imo.
Meanwhile, Mario’s been putting out hit after hit. Even games like the NSMB series are still very well-made games, even if a little lacking in imagination.
And if go you look at how much the Mario movie utterly destroyed the Sonic movie in the worldwide box office, this whole thing starts sounding pretty unlikely, Mario is just too far ahead. He’s literally the face of gaming and has been for decades.
I just don’t think Sega is capable of doing this tbh, Sonic has been fighting a losing battle since day one.
Economy always knows the answer.
And the answer alwais is: Mario wins.
Not sure what your talking about?
I think it’s funny to see people act like everything is always even and the same, a 3D mario game usually has about 3 to 5 years of dev time( just a generalization) a 3D sonic game has usually about 2 to 3, only in recent years has it been closer to the 3 years, so generally speaking a game with more dev time to work on everything would be better, and even then a mario game just has more time to work with, they don’t have to write a story, or other characters or really a overall plot and things to keep canon with the story, and considering that it was either sonic 2 that took the lead there for a while, not a long time but a while. If we talk about 2D then it gets a little different, mario had a better formula. Sonic was try to do a similar formula, but with speed, some worked better then others, mario played it safe with less upgrades to the formula and more optimization to it, sonic tried both leading to what gave us sonic CD, a game with an amazing concept for the time, but a very flawed execution, I mean im not expecting a lot from a nintendo news site for people to do a little research or anything other then say sonic bad, mario good.
“and even then a mario game just has more time to work with, they don’t have to write a story, or other characters or really a overall plot and things to keep canon with the story”
And who said Sega needs to do the same with Sonic? Especially when Sonic’s story just plain sucks overall? It’s either something basic (like the Mario games), dark and edgy stuff (the Adventure games, Frontiers, Forces) or your cheesy Saturday morning cartoon (Heroes, Colors). Let’s not pretend Sonic is winning awards for narrative because it isn’t. Frontiers was the biggest proof that story in Sonic games is just unnecessary.
Moreover, some Mario games did bring nice narratives, mostly the RPG ones, while Sonic can’t even do that.
there was a time I would say Sonic is better than Mario, but ever since boost Sonic…
I- um… I really like Sonic, but uh, good luck with that.
You know what Sega?
This Halloween i saw more children wearing Mario costumes than sonic’s, also nowadays Mario’s related stuff such as plushies and so on are selling like hotcakes, you can see every time children and adults asking for Mario and few for the hedgehog, honestly Nintendo is doing a better job positioning Mario as a brand.
It’s nice to want things, but this is one of those things maybe you don’t say out loud cause it ain’t happening.. so you’re only opening yourself up be forever trolled by saying this publicly.😂
I would honestly support Sega’s ambitions, if they made better decisions regarding their IP (aka Sonic): putting what looks like a beautiful game (aka the newly announced Sonic Dream Team) exclusively on Apple Arcade is NOT how you do that.
Isn’t that what they’ve been trying for 30 years?
This is just plain awkward. The ship of “Sega trying to make Sonic surpass Mario” sailed away decades ago.
Doesn’t help that this statement is made public a few hours after a newly-announced Sonic game is confirmed Apple Arcade exclusive…
Was at a store the other day where they sold games, and Sonic had a single self space, while Mario Wonder had a big cardboard standee of Mario filled with games. Never any competition there.
Impossible 😅
You know, I would say that’s impossible due to Sega refusing to improve, but Nintendo refuses to improve too so that’s not too unlikely.
The brand has been damaged too much in the last 30 years to ever reach that accolade. Won’t knock them for dreaming there, good to have goals.
Sonic, I like you, make no mistake but Mario has just crossed the Rainbow Road finish line while you’ve just finished the first lap on the starter course.
Even if you had 100 Spiny Shells you’d still not reach him.
Sonic è pubblicato su diverse piattaforme, quindi potrebbe anche superare come vendite Mario, che invece esce solo su Switch.