The incredible Sound Team at SEGA have participated in a new interview during which they were asked about the success of the Sonic the Hedgehog movies and whether they’ve seen a knock on effect for users searching for the soundtracks to the games. Here’s what they said via machine translation.
In recent years, the Sonic the Hedgehog film series has been a global hit. Have you noticed any changes in the listening audience for related music?
Tomoya Ohtani:
There have been three films so far, and I think Sonic × Shadow: Tokyo Mission in particular incorporated the most references and arrangements from game music in the series. It definitely had a significant impact on the streaming numbers of the original tracks as well.
Ryo Kinoshita:
The data clearly shows that songs used in the films have increased year-over-year. What’s interesting is that even songs not directly featured in the movie see growth. This time, since the story focused on the character Shadow the Hedgehog, tracks and soundtracks related to Shadow from past game titles saw a huge boost.
Go Iwasaki:
Since the films are family-oriented, many fans go to see them with their children. People who used to play the games years ago are now parents—they watch the movie with their kids, then rediscover and listen to the older music again. In that sense, the films have played a very important role as a touchpoint.
Kinoshita:
This time especially, we were able to align everything perfectly for the first time—like releasing game DLC (downloadable content) tied to the movie’s storyline and timing the release of streaming soundtracks to coincide with the film’s premiere. Not just new releases, but even the existing catalog benefited, and seeing that synergy clearly reflected in the numbers was a major achievement.
People know i am not the biggest Nintendo fan here but i gotta admit that theaters are more crowded during Mario’s than sonic’s and the latter is mostly full of children with the occasional empty seats…
Sonic has kids watch it but Mario has a bunch of 40 year olds. Minecraft had the better run and a young audience.
Mario was like 50/50, sonic was 80% annoying kids and manchildren. Now excuse me while i go to hit myself with a hammer for saying something nice about nintendo, glad Nintendo commander Quadradork doesn’t lurk here as much as before.
Modern So ic Games aren’t guaranteed to have great music anymore, not even good music. Sonic Colors and up have been hit or miss with 85% probably being a miss.
Forces had great music, Generations had good mixes, Frontiers debatable. Normally music is the only good thing in the games.
Sonic Colors Ultimate has bad music. Sonic Colors Wii/OG has GREAT music.
Sonic Colors had BANGERS bro. Aquarium Park, Terminal Velocity, and Asteroid Coaster just to name a few. The remixes in Colors Ultimate were meh. Oh and find my pages
Really?
“Kinoshita”
Indeed
The film franchise has a good impact for old and new fans to the series. The soundtrack was intense to it’s game counterpart.
One thing the Sonic games consistently do well even when the game and gameplay itself is mid or less, is the soundtrack. I have listened to:
-White Acropolis from ’06 while walking to school in a blizzard
-Soleanna Castle Town while walking along a river path in a historic downtown area
-Sky Road Act 1 from Lost World, Tropical Jungle from ’06, and Green Forest from SA2 while jogging through a forest preserve
-Sung along to Open Your Heart with some friends on the way to an after-party
-the Tails and Eggman stages’ music from SA2 while driving (Prison Lane, Cosmic Wall, etc.)
-Pumpkin Hill CONSTANTLY throughout the month of October
And that’s just a few examples- a good portion of Sonic music is good enough to be applicable irl
Sonic Colors had some absolute bangers, no joke. Tracks like Aquarium Park, Terminal Velocity, and Asteroid Coaster still hit hard. The remixes in Colors Ultimate though? Kinda underwhelming. Anyway, go check out my pages too.
That’s awesome and cool too.
Yay