Sega “turning Sonic into an entertainment icon”

“We are really focused on turning Sonic into an entertainment icon, not just a games icon,” says Ivo Gerscovich, Sega’s Chief Brand Officer.

“We want to go across all platforms and elevate his status even further, which explains why we are doing so much. Sega is really–as of this last year–putting a huge emphasis on quality.”

Yes he actually said that they’re finally getting around to putting an emphasis on quality. That’s what Sega was doing wrong this whole time. Just imagine how great the Sega CD could have been with an emphasis on quality.

Sonic will be getting a new game in 2017 and a film in 2018. The film will combine CG and live-action… which sounds like a disaster. But wait, I’ve already forgotten they’ll be putting an emphasis on quality, so it’ll probably be the next Avatar.

Personally I feel Sega shouldn’t put all of their eggs into Sonic and/or his nemesis EggMan (Dr Robotnik to us Westerners). Sonic was lightning in a bottle. A product of the 90s eXtreme culture. It was a time of mascots and he filled the niche of the anti-Mario on a system that was most famous for being #2 to Nintendo. Sonic games have been mostly terrible since the 16-bit era and even the best of the series never matched up to a proper Mario. It feels like Sega is trying to breathe life back into a long-dead horse.

Sega, I’m glad you’ve figured out that quality matters, but don’t forget about having a quantity of games other than Sonic just in case a second-rate mascot from the early 90s doesn’t answer all of your prayers. Why didn’t you go all in on Shenmue 3?

Now I’ll leave you with my favorite part of the entire Sonic universe