People should stop buying crappy Sonic games so Sega puts more effort into them.

The core of the Secret Rings game was good, but the game overall is crappy. Why? because what kind of game do you want to play the same level over and over again doing some lame thing like collecting a certain number of coins or killing a certain number of enemies? Boring. There were 8 worlds (from what I rememeber) in the game, they couldn't have had more levels and less of that missions crap? Why did they do this????

Also don't get me started on the story or the music, I literally wanted to stick needles through my ear drums to not hear the completely horrifying music in that game.

The good stuff in the game which could be built up in future Sonic games on Wii were the controls and how Sonic on rails works really well on the Wii (finally working in 3d), those are things that can be used to make the future Sonic games really good on that console if they put at least some effort into the levels and scrap all this mission business... 

Well, one of the reasons for PS2 success was piracy,  so the downfall of dreamcast must be attributed elsewere in my opinion.

The Sonic franchise has seen it's share of weak titles, so low interest in a new title van be explained. Still, his popularity managed to sell even those appaling games, so his status as an iconic character remains strong. I love Sonic & The Secret Rings, the only thing that was implemended badly was the reverse spin of the wiimote. Very frustrating in some of the collect rings/eggs/whatever. They could have gone with plain old D-pad, that would be by far more stable than reseting the mote in neutral position. The games sales are not bad in america & europe and i predict he's going to rank to 600000-700000. Nil interest in japan can be explained because the game was for American audiences in mind.

The interresting thing is to argue who is going to pull more Mario & Sonic at  the ol. games sales,  the hedgehog or the plumber.

Welcome to the modern world  

Sonic isn't dead, or else they wouldn't be making another DS game and Sega wouldn't have said the WII is the console who will get Sonic as exclusive, probably as Sonic & the Secret Rings is the best selling game in ages for a console.

I like Sonic & Secret Rings, except of the sound which is constant repeating and therefore irritating. Even when I go to sleep I hear in my mind the same song over and over again. That's the only real frustrating thing about it for me.

I have not played Sonic Wii, but as I understand it is has got pretty good reviews (compared to the rest). If they spend some more time doing the next iteration I do think Sonic 3D can grow up to a decent plattformer. Other than that it would be really fun to see a new 2D Sonic on Wii, of course classic remote controlled.

Well I was going to chime in about how Mrstickball was wrong about Sega fans throwing their support behind the PS2, but it seems that comment brought the old school Sega fans in force. Sega themselves have stated that they made a mistake in not putting more of their titles on the Gamecube. The Gamecube got the worse titles quality wise from Sega yet they sold the best. Most Sega fans seemed to migrate to Nintendo. They were pissed at Sony because the PS2 quelled the DC purely on hype alone and angry at MS for stabbing Sega in the back with the release of the X-box. Plus paying Sega not to release Shenmue II in the US so that it could be an X-box exclusive didn't help MS out with the Sega faithful either.

Edit: Seems I chimed in anyway heh

Mind telling me exactly how the Sonic series has done so much better now, on DS/GC/Wii than it did during the Genesis/MD era?

Sonic 1 sold 800k units in 1991-1992 on just over 1.1m Mega Drive's in Japan.

Sonic 2 did 500k units in 1992-1993.

Sonic 3 did 590k in 1994.

Sonic Jam did 250k on Sat in 1997

Sonic Adventure 1 on Sat did 1.3m in 1998-1999

 Sonic Adventure 2 on DC did 350k in 2001

Sonic Advance did 203k on GBA in 2001

Sonic Adventure Battle on GC did 608k in 2001-2002

Sonic Advance 2 on GBA did 636k in 2002-2003

Sonic Mega Collection did 147k on GC in 2002-2003

Sonic Adventure DX on GC sold 194k on GC in 2003-2004

Sonic & The Secret Rings sold 24k on Wii in 2007 thus far

Sonic software on Nintendo systems has sold 1.8m units in Japan. On Sega systems, it's sold 3.7m for the same number of games.

 Thefore, Sonic games on Sega systems has sold twice as well on Nintendo systems. I truely fail to see how I am wrong about my assumption(s).

Not to mention the fact that only 2 Sonic games have sold over 500k on Nintendo systems, 1 handheld, 1 console.

Care to back up pro-nintendo statements about Sega fans with actual numbers now? I've given you numbers - Sonic sold far better on Sega systems than Nintendo systems.

Now, I just need to wait for some actual American data on Sonic games. Lets hope we can get some American data to compare.

I have to agree with most of this. Sonic on the Wii is easily the most disapointing game I have played on the Wii - and the game fails for all the wrong reasons.

The graphics are excellent, (most) of the controls are solid, and the "on-rails" premise is excellent - it could have made an excellent 2D platformer (set in a 3D world).

The overall game progression is the worst I have ever played. You play random "missions" set in a given world, and when you complete enough, you magically trigger some random event, which magically unlocks another world. Its the complete anti-thesis of the simple "logic" present in the Mario games.

I hate the jumping mechanism, the backtracking... and don't even get me started about "pumping" those barrels for height (shudder!). The targeting is excellent/fun, and the left/right is decent enough.

Its a classic case of a game that would be MUCH better when half the crap/ideas in it are removed. Its also so far removed from "casual" gamers, its no wonder sales are suffering. I can barely play it (and am overcome with frustration most of the time I do).

...

They should try the game again - and stick to simpler controls, in more arcadish levels - without any of the crap.

I think you got the comments of the others wrong. Nobody doubts that Sonic games would do best on Sega consoles, but because there are no Sega consoles anymore, the question is which of the systems left fits best, and at least for Sonic this is clearly the Wii. Platformers always used to be big on Nintendo consoles, and even if there were not that much of them on the GC i guess that the platformer fans are still buying Nintendo consoles.

I generally think that the Sega fanbase has shifted mostly to Nintendo because Nintendo's thoughts about gaming are just closer to the ones of Sega than Sony's are. It would have been the best anyway if Nintendo had bought Sega after the failure of the dreamcast, an alliance of this two old-school gaming companies would might have had a chance against PS2's dominance.

If Nintendo would stop making consoles, I would also buy a PS3, even if Sony is Nintendo's biggest enemy, because I think Sony is closer to Nintendo than Microsoft is.

 Um yea I got som stuff.  Sonic was the heavy hitter on Sega consoles while on Nintendo consoles it isn't.  For these games to be saling that well in Japan, when Sonic really has started to fade out there, is showing a lot.  The only reason it sold in Japan for the Sega consoles is cause what else were the Japanese going to buy for the Sega consoles.  Point taken?

But Sega consoles don't count.  How about you compare most sales of Sonic games on the 3 current consoles and I think you'll see the ponit we are trying to prove.  Geez why is it always when people argue sales they try to find all these little twists from the past.  It's likt they all say well if you look at sales of this game on a console 5 generations ago launched in December and was the only game on that system and compare to another game in that series launched on this console in January with 5 other super games and then ya try to prove a point.  Let's stop trying to find all these loopholes to prove your points.  How about you look at the sales directly and go from there.  I mean if we are going to do comparisons let's try and look at all sides and see what's the most "fair" comparison.  I mean it's like comparing the sales of the top Wii game in Japan to the top 360 game in Japan.  I mean are we really being fair at all.