Of course the character's Name and IP would be sold to balance the loss of the company, but I'm wondering WHO would buy him. In the first place the most reasonable company to buy Sonic would be Nintendo since they make the Mario&Sonic games and they are use to making platforming games, on the other hand there are Sony and Microsoft, both without their own mascotte, Sony has been looking for a proper mascotte for a while, and even if it seemed that Crash was near to get the title he was never really used by them, Microsoft instead has lots of money and might be thinking aswell of buying the caracter to make it it's own character. So what do you think will happen to Sonic IF SEGA goes bankrupt ?

he could die in peace

Nintendo would buy the rights for pennies on the dollar and nothing would really change.

Nintendo would probably be the ones who'd take the Sonic IP, but Sega won't go bankrupt anytime soon, if ever. They have been doing fine recently. And btw Sega makes the Mario & Sonic games, not Nintendo.

His corpse would be violated by Smeags...

yes you read that right..

and you know its true..

If Sega would have become bankrupted during the DreamCast days, it would have probably been bought by Microsoft. They were entering the console market, and if they bought Rare to get recognisable IPs even when their biggest minds were departing, buying Sega would have been an even bigger push to the XBox. After all, one of the biggest software makers for the system was Sega, so it isn't that far of a stretch.

Nintendo was pushing hard the GCube at the time too, but if they didn't buy Rare before Microsoft, why would they buy Sega, it being an infinite bigger fish, and having the GBA selling quite well, compensating for the money the GC wasn't earning? Sony wouldn't have done it period, they were on the top of the mountain already, they didn't need such a big risk.

Someone will just buy him, possibly Nintendo.

I respect Sega for their past endevours, but lately with games like Sonic Boom i guess nobody would miss them if they kick the bucket.

Sonic would have been bought by someone who didn't try to make it dark and edgy.

I like how well the name "Sonic" pairs with "Sony".