is it me or sonic should be bought by nintendo?
- Thread starter GDRamen
- Start date
- Status
Sonic has been kinda weird over the past decade or so - while much of the original audience has been in some state or shunning or TALKING about shunning his newer stuff (and you'd be surprised at how much of that is just talk and nothing else), SEGA continues to make good sales with most Sonic games, so they're clearly hitting the mark for SOMEBODY.
It can hardly be argued that people who have never played the original games are only buying them because Sonic used to be good, after all. Much of the hate can be attributed to how different modern Sonic games are AS games, rather than just having better graphics and sound and different story. Sonic has reinvented himself for his main-line games many times, and while there are some links to gameplay elements from the old stuff in there. If you replaced all the characters, musical and SFX callbacks and other superficial trappings of the series while leaving the game underneath the same, you would be hard-pressed to call Sonic Colors, for example, as a Sonic ripoff if all you knew were the classic Sonic games.
Compare that with Super Mario 3D Land (and world), which while innovative, took great pains to feel the same just moving around as the first Mario games on the NES - Though Nintendo always throws in something really new and exciting into the formula when putting out a new iteration on one of their series, seldom does a main-line game reinvent itself for any particular iteration... and when it does, the reception is sometimes pretty controversial, or even scathing. Metroid Other M and Super Mario Sunshine come to mind: The first was pretty universally panned, but the second was a love-it-or-hate-it affair... good on its own merits for people whose tastes agreed, but not necessarily aligned with the original audience's tastes.
That last bit accounts for a lot of the hate sonic gets, and fits like a glove with the typical criticisms of "boost to win"(except that you usuaully can't) and "they should make a game like the classics". Naturally, if someone's tastes lay in that direction, that's what they want Sonic to be. It doesn't account for all of the hate, though, not nearly.
Not when a complete trainwreck like Sonic 2006 exists. Not when a failed attempt to perfectly align with classic tastes like Sonic 4 exists. Not when their methodology for comissioning ports is so dysfunctional that they'll pay someone to port a port when the first port had a native version on the platform they were targeting like Sonic CD. And not when Sonic is their only major IP (Intellectual Property) to keep broad recognition comparable to Nintendo's series.
Would Nintendo be able to pull Sonic out of his rut if Nintendo took the reigns? Would they be able to make a game that aligns with classic tastes, or with any of his newer "gametypes" that have attracted the new audiences that kept Sonic going all these years? Would they do something completely different instead? I'm not sure, though it certainly is the case that Nintendo has a better track record for managing their IPs and talented developers, so I expect Sonic would get better in the long run. If nothing else, for better or worse we would probably see far fewer Sonic games - Nintendo spaces out releases of their major series, and does not need to rely on him as a cash cow to keep themselves profitable.
And, ultimately, Sega doesn't either because they're not just a videogame company. Yes, Sonic keeps the videogame side of things humming, but the majority of their profits instead come from Pachinko machines sold in Japan (think flipperless pinball, but with multiball and lots of crazy gimmicks). And so long as that remains the case, Sonic is unlikely to go up for sale.
It can hardly be argued that people who have never played the original games are only buying them because Sonic used to be good, after all. Much of the hate can be attributed to how different modern Sonic games are AS games, rather than just having better graphics and sound and different story. Sonic has reinvented himself for his main-line games many times, and while there are some links to gameplay elements from the old stuff in there. If you replaced all the characters, musical and SFX callbacks and other superficial trappings of the series while leaving the game underneath the same, you would be hard-pressed to call Sonic Colors, for example, as a Sonic ripoff if all you knew were the classic Sonic games.
Compare that with Super Mario 3D Land (and world), which while innovative, took great pains to feel the same just moving around as the first Mario games on the NES - Though Nintendo always throws in something really new and exciting into the formula when putting out a new iteration on one of their series, seldom does a main-line game reinvent itself for any particular iteration... and when it does, the reception is sometimes pretty controversial, or even scathing. Metroid Other M and Super Mario Sunshine come to mind: The first was pretty universally panned, but the second was a love-it-or-hate-it affair... good on its own merits for people whose tastes agreed, but not necessarily aligned with the original audience's tastes.
That last bit accounts for a lot of the hate sonic gets, and fits like a glove with the typical criticisms of "boost to win"(except that you usuaully can't) and "they should make a game like the classics". Naturally, if someone's tastes lay in that direction, that's what they want Sonic to be. It doesn't account for all of the hate, though, not nearly.
Not when a complete trainwreck like Sonic 2006 exists. Not when a failed attempt to perfectly align with classic tastes like Sonic 4 exists. Not when their methodology for comissioning ports is so dysfunctional that they'll pay someone to port a port when the first port had a native version on the platform they were targeting like Sonic CD. And not when Sonic is their only major IP (Intellectual Property) to keep broad recognition comparable to Nintendo's series.
Would Nintendo be able to pull Sonic out of his rut if Nintendo took the reigns? Would they be able to make a game that aligns with classic tastes, or with any of his newer "gametypes" that have attracted the new audiences that kept Sonic going all these years? Would they do something completely different instead? I'm not sure, though it certainly is the case that Nintendo has a better track record for managing their IPs and talented developers, so I expect Sonic would get better in the long run. If nothing else, for better or worse we would probably see far fewer Sonic games - Nintendo spaces out releases of their major series, and does not need to rely on him as a cash cow to keep themselves profitable.
And, ultimately, Sega doesn't either because they're not just a videogame company. Yes, Sonic keeps the videogame side of things humming, but the majority of their profits instead come from Pachinko machines sold in Japan (think flipperless pinball, but with multiball and lots of crazy gimmicks). And so long as that remains the case, Sonic is unlikely to go up for sale.
Last edited:
Whatever they end up like in terms of gameplay, they'd at least be good.
Dark Metal
ZNemeald
So many fans think that Nintendo buying Mega man and Sonic going to fix everything. If you take a look at star fox, metroid, donkey kong, and other smaller IPs, Nintendo is not really interested or have "ideas" for anything but Mario and Zelda mostly. Also remember F zero GX? That game was developed by Sega but Miyamoto hated it (I know because of difficulty but still how long has it been anyway?)
Nintendo makes new games for their franchises when they can come up with something for them. Mario and Zelda being flagship names isn't the only factor.
Mega Man games have a reputation for sticking very close to the original formula, so it'd be extremely easy for Nintendo to make a title that breaks the mold. Sonic could be harder because they would need to establish the base structure.
Mega Man games have a reputation for sticking very close to the original formula, so it'd be extremely easy for Nintendo to make a title that breaks the mold. Sonic could be harder because they would need to establish the base structure.
Last edited:
- Status