Thu, Oct 07, 2010 | 09:30 BST
Average Sonic titles de-listed, says Sega
Sega has confirmed it has de-listed from retail certain Sonic titles, which end up with average or poor Meta scores.
The publisher says the move was to stop any concerns of “cannibalisation”, as the publisher plans to release three Sonic titles by the end of the year: Sonic Colours for Wii and DS, Sonic Free Riders for 360 via Kinect and Sonic 4 on PSN, XBLA, WiiWare and iPhone.
“We could make a lot of money on back-catalogue Sonic titles, but let’s keep the number of Sonic games available under control,” said Sega’s SVP of EMEA, Jurgen Post.
“Otherwise you can have cannibalisation. If there are ten Sonic games on the shelves, with people seeing Sonic Rush DS or Sonic Rush Adventure, this may not help our overall strategy.”
There’s more on the move at MCV.
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Posted in: DS, Kinect, PS3, PSN, Platformer, Sega, Wii, Xbox 360, Xbox Live
Tags: sonic, sonic the hedgehog
19 comments
#1
Gekidami
07/10/10, 9:34 am
With poor meta scores? Isnt that like, all of them since Sega went multiplat?
#2
Blerk
07/10/10, 9:40 am
“let’s keep the number of Sonic games available under control,” said Sega’s SVP of EMEA, Jurgen Post…. shortly before launching three new Sonic games at once.
#3
chronoss2
07/10/10, 9:48 am
Sega is sinking, this sounds so ridiculous!
#4
SplatteredHouse
07/10/10, 9:50 am
82, and 78, respectively, is considered an “average” Metacritic total, now? *groans* Bad example, much? I’m really not trying to answer my own question, but, what’s the point of Metacritic, once you start applying that sort of bizarre logic?
On the other hand, it probably means that Sonic Rider’s day, if it ever had one, is now done.
#5
Robo_1
07/10/10, 9:54 am
Is this some spoof PR from Sega? As Blerk said, they’re about to release 3 new Sonic games in one quarter; and they’re worried about diluting the franchise!
Holy shit Sega, your chance to do that disappeared around the time Shadow The Hedgehog was kicked out the door.
#6
Erthazus
07/10/10, 9:55 am
Someone will buy Sega in the end.
Will it be EA, Microsoft, sony or Square Enix? Who knows.
#7
Blerk
07/10/10, 10:03 am
Who’d want them?
#8
Freek
07/10/10, 10:08 am
Plenty of great franchises I’m sure people would love to get thier hands on and liberate out of Segas desperate need to run everything into the ground.
Nintendo buys them out and releases a great Sonic game. I don’t think the universe could handel something that paradox inducing, but it’d be cool to see.
#9
Erthazus
07/10/10, 10:22 am
@7 They have a lot of Mascot titles and very good franchises.
#10
Robo_1
07/10/10, 10:31 am
Oh yeah, let’s not get carried away. They may be a bit of a joke on the Sonic side of things, but Sega as a whole have some cracking franchises under their belt, not least the recent stuff they’ve done with Platinum games.
Sonic Colours even looks pretty decent.
#11
Blerk
07/10/10, 10:36 am
I’m genuinely struggling to think of any Sega franchise I’ve given a shit about since the Megadrive era aside from Yakuza. That’s probably just me, though – I never really understood the whole ‘Sega love’ thing.
Do they own the IP rights to the Platinum stuff? I thought they were just publishing.
#12
OlderGamer
07/10/10, 1:00 pm
The only other JP companies that I think is on the same level as Sega are Capcom and Nintendo. They are progresivly thinking. They own a ton of great franchises. They have delivered amazing gameplay experiences. PSO will go down as one of my all time fav games ever made.
The problem is that, like Capcom, they are another JP game company struggling to find their way in recent years.
#13
Psychotech
07/10/10, 1:11 pm
i think sega is preparing to make a come back in the console market somewhere down the line.
#14
Robo_1
07/10/10, 1:14 pm
SRSLY?
#15
OlderGamer
07/10/10, 1:18 pm
As a handheld maker, maybe.
As a console maker? I doubt it, but if they did, I would buy it day one.
#16
Blerk
07/10/10, 1:26 pm
Launching hardware into the current market would be insanity. See: Panasonic.
#17
Psychotech
07/10/10, 1:28 pm
@15 you never know.maybe not on their own
#18
Michael O’Connor
07/10/10, 1:58 pm
I find this perplexing. Sonic Rush was probably the best attempt at a traditional Sonic game in the past decade…
#19
AHA-Lambda
07/10/10, 10:57 pm
bit late eh? also OMGLOL:
OK, just looking through metacritic, these games are being pulled (current gen only):
Sonic the Hedgehog 2006
Sonic Unleashed
Sonic and the Black Knight
Sonic Classic Collection DS
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games
Sonic and the Secret Rings
Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity
Sonic Rivals
Sonic Rivals 2
and these are staying:
Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing
Sonic Rush
Sonic Rush Adventure
Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection