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Ask any gamer about Sonic the Hedgehog, and he/she will tell you that Sega's franchise is long past its glory days. Countless side characters and gameplay gimmicks have been introduced, but the bottom line is that the quality of the franchise is lacking. About a year ago, during our GameDaily days, we asked Sega of America's VP of Marketing Sean Ratcliffe about this very issue. He told us at the time that the criticism for Sonic was “warranted†and that Sega's certainly concerned and spends “a lot of time and effort...discussing how we develop Sonic."
Last November, Sega released Sonic Unleashed, and once again the quality wasn't where it needed to be. The game earned a Metacritic score of 54 on PS3, 60 on Xbox 360, and 66 on Wii. IndustryGamers recently caught up with Ratcliffe, and naturally we had to ask him about the Sonic quality issue again.
“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. 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. 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,†he responded.
“The point in terms of quality is that we're constantly trying to improve the quality. When we were in Tokyo recently there was talk about several Sega properties and how we can best make sure we're constantly pushing that quality bar on Sonic. ... Yes, it's always a challenge to raise that quality bar, but our competitors are trying to put the best product out there and we're no different. Given that it takes a couple of years to make some of these games, it's not surprising that we're not going to see the effort that's being put in over the past 12 months until another 6-12 months.â€
Considering that hardcore fans would probably like to see a more traditional side-scrolling Sonic game, we asked Ratcliffe if Sega had given this some thought. After all, Nintendo is about to make another 2-D side-scroller in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, so why can't Sega give its mascot a similar treatment on consoles?
“The answer is yes; we're constantly looking at our classic IP, be it Sonic or anything else. And now we have different avenues open to us to deliver that," Ratcliffe said. "On iPhone, for example, we launched the original Sonic and consumers loved that. ... So we no longer have to think in terms of consoles and packaged goods and we can look at digital downloads. From a mobile and iPhone point of view, we've been very successful with Sonic. So we can look at XBLA and so on, and it means we can give those core fans experiences in different ways now. So that's a big part of our strategy, in terms of taking classic IP and making it available digitally, rather than spend a huge amount of money trying to re-imagine that IP on 360 and PS3; there's a lot more financial risk attached to that.â€
source
nothing will fix sonic's image.
Last November, Sega released Sonic Unleashed, and once again the quality wasn't where it needed to be. The game earned a Metacritic score of 54 on PS3, 60 on Xbox 360, and 66 on Wii. IndustryGamers recently caught up with Ratcliffe, and naturally we had to ask him about the Sonic quality issue again.
“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. 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. 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,†he responded.
“The point in terms of quality is that we're constantly trying to improve the quality. When we were in Tokyo recently there was talk about several Sega properties and how we can best make sure we're constantly pushing that quality bar on Sonic. ... Yes, it's always a challenge to raise that quality bar, but our competitors are trying to put the best product out there and we're no different. Given that it takes a couple of years to make some of these games, it's not surprising that we're not going to see the effort that's being put in over the past 12 months until another 6-12 months.â€
Considering that hardcore fans would probably like to see a more traditional side-scrolling Sonic game, we asked Ratcliffe if Sega had given this some thought. After all, Nintendo is about to make another 2-D side-scroller in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, so why can't Sega give its mascot a similar treatment on consoles?
“The answer is yes; we're constantly looking at our classic IP, be it Sonic or anything else. And now we have different avenues open to us to deliver that," Ratcliffe said. "On iPhone, for example, we launched the original Sonic and consumers loved that. ... So we no longer have to think in terms of consoles and packaged goods and we can look at digital downloads. From a mobile and iPhone point of view, we've been very successful with Sonic. So we can look at XBLA and so on, and it means we can give those core fans experiences in different ways now. So that's a big part of our strategy, in terms of taking classic IP and making it available digitally, rather than spend a huge amount of money trying to re-imagine that IP on 360 and PS3; there's a lot more financial risk attached to that.â€
source
nothing will fix sonic's image.
