Sega wants Sonic IP to finally "catch up and surpass Mario"

From GameWatcher: "Publisher Sega has lofty plans for its Sonic IP, aiming to develop it in such a way that it will "catch up and surpass Mario" in the future.

Sonic and Mario have always been competitors, but where Nintendo has managed to consistently stick the landing with its titles – even when stepping outside its comfort zone – Sega's output has often received a mixed reception from both fans and critics.

[gold_drake]

im a huge sonic fan, but that will never happen.

mario games have solid gameplay in every game he is in.
mario is also more child friendly and easier to play.

[Number1TailzFan]

It's easier to play now, that was only due to players crying about Mario World being too hard before it released.

Lost Levels was probably the hardest, 3 had decent difficulty without being too easy or too hard. These days the game seems to pander to too easy, unless you go on the extra worlds or special stages which aren't really part of the main game.

[Concertoine]

The newer mario games are good about keeping challenging content as optional or bonus. I know the secret final level of 3D world gave me more trouble than anything a Sonic game has tossed my way

[Profchaos]

Players never got to try the lost levels it was a decision made because Howard Phillips a Nintendo employee that played new games as they came to the country he complained and we got smb2 USA.

In addition the choice worked well really as we would have never gotten to play a reskinned doki doki panic otherwise and that would be the true crime

[blackblades]

Mario is just universal, fighting, sports, 3d and 2d platforming, rpg, racing and it goes on and all different while being the same character. With the most important thing the games are always fun and get good reviews unlike sonic which can be a hit or miss which its been missing since sonic adventure and i guess the new 3d sonic game. Only thing sonic is best at is the music other then that sonic will never surpass Mario

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I agree, Sonic is wildly inconsistent with each iteration, you never know what you're going to get, at least with Mario, you're more or less guaranteed a good time regardless of which game you play. I really wish Sonic had done a lot better, there's room for both Mario and Sonic, and I actually enjoy Sonic more as a character personally.

[Agent75]

Been too many bad Sonic games over the years.

[shamon85]

i agree

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Mario is brimming with quality and Nintendo will take time with it. Other than Panasonic Era, usually quality games. So SEGA prepare to take your time and don't cheap out.

[BrainSyphoned]

By selling it to Xbox so we can hear that 25 million players tried the game for 5 minutes? Then every sheep and journo can pretend that Phil is the King of Japan and Sega is nothing without him, the Nintendo should give in and sell to MS and that Sony only makes movie games not classic games.

[Plague-Doctor27]

Because its Sonic, the only thing MS would do with it is run it into the ground at lightning speed rather than regular speed

[-Foxtrot]

Lol

Making games like Frontiers is not going to help them achieve that.

Also Superstars was average at best

They should have stuck on the Sonic Mania train, then work towards Sonic Adventure 3

[Inverno]

They saw how well Mania was received and said "let's not do that again, let's go back to sub par games and low effort collections". Maybe they think if they make good games then expectations would be too make more good games, and they rather just keep screwing Sonic fans with low effort stuff.

[-Foxtrot]

Personally I think they were pretty f****** jealous this fan based team with this fan composer managed to do a better Sonic game with better music than Sonic Team

Take the music for example, the guy did some tracks for Superstars and they are probably the best ones in the game. Look up Sand Sanctuary, it’s a tune.
Feels it made them furious and they don’t want people to know the best Sonic game in years didn’t really come from them.

It’s petty as hell

[Inverno]

I don't doubt it. I bought mania and I'm not a fan of Sonic, but the look was so crisp and the music was good I couldn't resist. There's a conversion mod for DOOM that I've also played and it's pretty much the most perfect 3D Sonic game I've ever seen.

[Scissorman]

the time for this passed, sega. back in the Nintendo vs. Genesis days when Sonic was the new mascot on the block maybe.

[H9]

For that to happen, one of two things need to occur:

Sega makes great solid games consistently

Nintendo makes average Mario games consistently

Neither of these 2 are gonna happen

[neomahi]

Not gonna happen. Since Sammy took over SEGA, it's just a public image, they never take anything seriously so, they have to actually want to make games first and not just use it to boost their gambling business first. Then, quit calling him EGGMAN, it's Dr. Robotnik. Watch the Sonic movies, play the Genesis games. Finally, you're gonna need devs like they had in those days or give Christian Whitehead a full time job with SEGA to develop Sonic games HIS way. You're gonna need a Miyamoto to beat a Miyamoto

[Agent75]

I’m not too much of a fan of SEGA collections, it’s incredible how many have been released over the years banging out the same games. About time SEGA changed the record and released collections with different games, more so Saturn and Dreamcast games. Still holding out for a Sonic Adventure 3. Plenty of SEGA arcade games to be had on collections. Scud Race and LA Riders are games l remember. Virtua Racing 2 is well over due. Could easily knock out a new game with 100 tracks, as they wouldn’t be much effort made on the basic polygon graphics. Crazy Taxi another, but only the first game was any good. Bang out the 2 JetsetRadio games on a collection. Come to think of it, Jetset Radio 3 is also well overdue. Diablo style Golden Axe and a sequel to the legendary Baku Baku Animal.

[Kneetos]

Good luck sega and sonic, and I mean that genuinely, the games have shown glimmers of promise, they just need to focus on the good.

[Disclaimer] I quite enjoyed sonic forces ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Levii_92]

Oh hell yeah yeah let’s go! I mean Sonic surpassing Mario is never ever gonna happen 😂 but i’m glad that the old classic rivlary will be back even though all that was before my time and i’m 30 years old.

[SimpleSlave]

...Mario Kart 8...Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed...Crash Team Racing...Team Sonic Racing...Diddy Kong Racing...Burnout 3...Burnout Paradise...The Pathless...Sword of the Sea...Shadow of the Colossus...Motorstorm Apocalypse...Split/Second...

Can you see it?

I'm materializing my Sonic Game ideas right into Sonic Teams Game Design Doc and Game Designers. I'm sure they'll get it eventually, but probably not.

Lets just say they have been going about this the wrong way.

[MehmetAlperTR]

It was better than mario when Dreamcast's Sonic Adventure released. After that you loose Sonic's souls in game.

[Profchaos]

It'll never happen not because sonic is bad but Mario is essentially platforming perfection and a cultural icon.
I love sonic I went from the nes to the mega drive largely in part to choosing sonic the hedgehog over SMB world the blue blue was exciting back then but after the mega drive Sega more often than not fails to stick the landing not all modern sonic games were bad but none of them were 10/10 for every adventure there's sonic boom but looking at Mario that doesn't happen while Sega was happy to offload sonic to third parties Nintendo learnt not to do that after the cdi entries were brutally bad.

Sonic has been the strongest it's ever been in the last 5 years but at this point there's way to many misses to not have trepidation every time you hear oh there's a new sonic coming.

[Good-Smurf]

Not gonna happen, not when they tried to sabotage every outside developers that have the potential to do better job than Sonic Team.
I felt so bad for what they did to Big Red Button and tried every trick in the book make sure that Rise of Lyric is a failure.
When you look in deep in that game there are real untapped potential there and we could have a great narrative driven Sonic game.
Nintendo obviously didn't do that to their outsourced developers I mean look at all the Luigi's Mansion games.

[SDuck]

Haven't played any Super Mario game apart from the original but I know fully well what Mario games have that Sonic games don't... Quality!

[repsahj]

I like Sonic, but saying that you can surpass Mario is a bit too much. Everything about Mario is very likeable. Heck, even his first movie became a billion-dollar grosser.

[Chocoburger]

SECOND movie.

[Barlos]

It doesn't need to. There's plenty of room for them both.

[Binarycode]

The Problem is Sonic is just speed. Bouncing around at face pace. They should have made sonic a more varied affair. They can still do that of course. More Platforming and speed. More thinking and not just running. It would be interesting to see what they come up with.