Yes, but none of the games you mentioned sold incredibly well.

This is about reaching a great value buy to return Sonic to a major series. You can't do that by putting $60 trash onto everyone and expecting it to sell like an NSMB:Wii.

Yes, there are certainly many games out there that people play for low amounts of time, and enjoy it, but at the same time, most of those types of games wind up selling very limited quantities. It is always the games that either provide a huge amount of value for a short game (TMNT for XBLA selling ~600,000 copies for a game that may last 1 hour....At $5) or a huge amount of value for a game of different lengths (NSMB:Wii or Call of Duty: MW2).

So for something like Sonic to really sell good (and I am saying >1 million copies per platform), you need something that screams 'must buy' at a given price point. Knowing the schema of XBLA/PSN, Sega could set themselves up as having the quintessential platformer for both consoles at $15, driving a lot of people to choose Needlemouse over titles X, Y or Z. The cost, though is that the digital medium has a lower install base (about 60% of all console owners), and even fewer buy titles (maybe 30% of all console owners). However, of those users, Sega could set themselves up for something huge.

Not only that, Sega has a very dominating presence as a pub/dev for digital games. Sega has the most titles of any developer on XBLA. Not only that, its by a pretty wide margin (about 2-3 games). They can leverage that with Needlemouse, to create cross-brand awareness, making them a dominant player in the digital market. That may be why they are doing what they are.

Plus, the costs of developing a SonicHD for XBLA/PSN/WW is going to be incredibly cheap. Something like Needlemouse may cost between $2-4 million USD when everything is said and done. If Sega plays their cards right, they could make that money back on XBLA alone in a month, easily. At 70% rev share, that would be just 380,000 copies needing sold at $15 for a $4 million game. By comparison, that is less than what Trials HD or Shadow Complex have sold (which were no-name titles that did very well). Not to mention, that is well under what BF1943 brought in on XBLA (which is at ~1.2 million units and selling about 50,000 copies a month on XBLA alone).

The bolded part makes most sense to me. I mean, even if they double the profits, 4 million really won't make an impact on their financial statements.

However if the game turns out to be great, it may deliver some needed credibility to Sonic franchise. Its a low budget/small risk way to deliver a great game, make a small profit and raise awareness for the Sonic brand. 

That is if everything goes according to plan...

Off Topic: So the rev share is 70/30 between publishers and Microsoft for XBL games?

still have my fingers crossed for a Wii Ware release

disolitude -

There is no *confirmed* number....That is to say that if a dev stated what the actual rev share was, they'd be in breach of contract.

However, its an unofficial rule that XBLA, PSN and WiiWare are all 70/30 splits. That may not always be the case due to contracts between the developer and the publisher, as some may be less (such as the dev getting 50% and the pub getting 20%). I do also believe that MS will publish the game as well for a cut of 20% (so 50/50).....But I think that for XBLA, that is not the case any more, as we don't see any MS-published games unless they are 1st party.

At any rate though, 70% of revenue is HUGE.

That's still them using Sonic as a cash cow, though. Nothing especially wrong with that (gotta make the money), but some of us want to see Sonic restored to top-tier glory, and you simply aren't getting the kind of market penetration with digital, with or without WiiWare included in that.

Fantastic!

No cutscenes, no horrible storyline, no Silver the Hedgehog and I'm very happy!

maybe it's me wishing this game would've been a bigger and better sonic game than recent ones, or maybe i'm just afraid it won't come to Wiiware, but i just don't want this game to be download only...

Weren't we hoping for this problem to be solved in the first place? Sonic being worth $50 (or $40 even), that is.

Do you think this game can outperform Sonic and the Secret Rings? The game did over 2 million on the Wii, and while there's no doubt many were sold at a discounted price, over a million of its sales were in its first year. I just don't see much potential at all in releasing a $15 download-only title. Sure, it'll make lots of money on its own, but I was hoping for more...

Like Mr Khan said, a digital-only release cannot return Sonic to top-tier glory. This is especially true when most of the Sonic fanbase is on the Wii, and likely pay little attention to WiiWare releases.

I'm just wishing for more 2D games with some AAA backing behind them. 3rd parties have a habit of following the leader (Nintendo) anyway, why not follow NSMB Wii's?

Well since you put it that way...