Remember Sonic? The Blue Blur from those old Genesis games, who "hasn't had a good game in years?"
Well turns out that he's still extremely relevant.
In fact, it looks like a major part of Sega's overall business plan is to branch Sonic out in different directions, with him being especially successful on DS and Wii, both in his own titles and in guest-starring or crossover roles. So far, the following games featuring Sonic have sold 1M copies:
Super Smash Bros. Brawl Wii
Mario and Sonic at the Olympics Wii
Mario and Sonic at the Olympics DS
Sonic Rush DS
Sonic and the Secret Rings Wii
He's also in the following other already-released games:
Sega Superstars Tennis Wii (550K sold so far)
Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity Wii (480K sold so far)
Sonic Rush Adventure DS (310K sold so far with no "others" data)
Sega Superstars Tennis DS (290K sold so far)
And he has three more games coming up:
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood DS
Sonic Unleashed Wii
Sonic and the Black Knight Wii
The first two of those titles will come later in 2008, with the Black Knight coming in the first half of 2009.
So the question is simple: When all is said and done, will there be more or less than 14.5 different games featuring Sonic to sell at least 1M copies on Nintendo's current gen platforms? (For this thread, we'll count different versions of multi-plats like Mario and Sonic seperately. And we'll stick to games where Sonic is playable; no hidden pictures behind a wall in a courtyard.)
I made the thread, so of course I have to go over. I expect Sega Tennis to leg it past 1M. I assume Sonic Rush Adventure is pretty close to 1M with "others" data. I expect Sonic Unleashed and Sonic and the Black Knight to each sell 1M. And I think every other game I've listed has at least some shot at selling 1M. There's just the one game featuring Sonic announced for 2009; there will probably be many more. The Sonic "storybook" series will probably continue on Wii. Sonic will probably be stuck in more games like Sega Tennis, he may be playable in the upcoming Samba De Amigo, and he could even have more crossovers with Nintendo characters.
Let the comments about Sonic being "whored out" commence...
"[Our former customers] are unable to find software which they WANT to play."
"The way to solve this problem lies in how to communicate what kind of games [they CAN play]."
Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President. Only slightly paraphrased.
