So basically, they're ashamed of the old games that 'failed' and are trying to sweep them under the rug.
Sega Dumping Substandard Sonic Games
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
Tell that to the developers of F-Zero games, Extreme G games, Wipeout games, Audiosurf, TrackMania...Tipsy Giant said:
The big question here is if they are changing the developers and getting quality talent behind it. Nobody sits around and decides they are going to make a bad game (except maybe Zynga going by some reports), every one of those mediocre Sonic titles were someone's darling and expected to be good and "revitalize the franchise" when released. The problem is that as Yahtzee keeps pointing out "Team Sonic" seems to involve a bunch of total retards. If we've got the same basic guys working on the projects, we're going to see the same problems. In a lot of cases the problem wasn't just the retarded ideas (werehog) but also poorly designed gameplay with unintuitive and clumsy controls, and oftentimes draconian mechanics allowing a lot of backtracking and hunting for coins to unlock new areas which could become a chore especially when there was only enough of whatever you were hunting for to progress with no excess, and some developers decided to be obtuse about hiding them in "clever" places, perhaps as an excuse to sell strategy guides for a game that otherwise wouldn't require them. Or at least this is how a lot of the complaints go, I'm not a big Sonic fan.
To me, "rebooting the franchise" seems like something I've heard before.
On top of this, despite their claims, de-listing the Sonic products just seems like a way of annoying what fan base the character has left (the Furry Fandom mostly it seems, to whom Sonic has sort of become their Ron Jeremy... at least judging by Deviant Art). Unless of course the whole plan is to hold the titles back for 3-10 years, and then release them as part of some kind of collection or whatever as part of a long term marketing scheme.
I mean it's good that they want to re-boot Sonic and produce more quality games, but are we supposed to believe that they weren't TRYING before, and they were lying to us all this time? That certainly breeds confidence in me trusting them now let me tell you....
I don't know, from where I'm sitting this whole thing makes so little sense and generates such a massive W T F, i'm actually hoping it's the target of Graham and Kathleen's next ENN special report.
To me, "rebooting the franchise" seems like something I've heard before.
On top of this, despite their claims, de-listing the Sonic products just seems like a way of annoying what fan base the character has left (the Furry Fandom mostly it seems, to whom Sonic has sort of become their Ron Jeremy... at least judging by Deviant Art). Unless of course the whole plan is to hold the titles back for 3-10 years, and then release them as part of some kind of collection or whatever as part of a long term marketing scheme.
I mean it's good that they want to re-boot Sonic and produce more quality games, but are we supposed to believe that they weren't TRYING before, and they were lying to us all this time? That certainly breeds confidence in me trusting them now let me tell you....
I don't know, from where I'm sitting this whole thing makes so little sense and generates such a massive W T F, i'm actually hoping it's the target of Graham and Kathleen's next ENN special report.
If the titles didn't sell in the first place and they really aren't on anyone's radar, then what sales are they "cannibalizing" exactly?
I played shadow the hedgehog so actually I wouldn't mind a few of those memory erasing chemicalsLvl 64 Klutz said:
As far as I'm concerned Sonic existed on the Megadrive (or Genesis for the American folk) and hasn't existed since then 
I'm happy leaving Sonic in the past lol.
Out of post-Megdrive days, the only two Sega games I've played are The Conduit and the new AvP. The new AvP was quite meh, Conduit was quite fun.
Who's after going back to the "old days" where Sonic was one of the good games everyone seemed to have and there wasn't the massive furry fandom that seems to have sprung up?
I'm happy leaving Sonic in the past lol.
Out of post-Megdrive days, the only two Sega games I've played are The Conduit and the new AvP. The new AvP was quite meh, Conduit was quite fun.
Who's after going back to the "old days" where Sonic was one of the good games everyone seemed to have and there wasn't the massive furry fandom that seems to have sprung up?
Are those platformers? cos sonic in a racing game is pointless, he is supposed to be the fastest thing alive and he is in a car? all sonic is good for is 2D platformers, if they wanna make other games invent new charactersDelusibeta said:
There's a furry fandom surrounding sonic now? Urgh, now i don't know if i'll be able to buy the new games :/tharglet said:
What do you mean, "if?"BrunDeign said:
It IS possible, they just have to keep the speed sections on one plane of motion (like they did in the 2d titles, or the Unleashed daylight levels.) And make the controls more forgiving, a nudge shouldn't send you 90 degrees into a ravine at 90 MPH.Tipsy Giant said:
I doubt there would be any confusion if Unleashed stayed on the shelf with Colors and Free Riders. There would just be three shitty Sonic games up there instead of two. But they're all equally shitty and not worth buying anyway, hence no confusion!
Also, this is why review scores are fail. If "75 or lower" is what we consider average on a scale of 1 through 100, there is something wrong here. 50 is average, 75 should mean that it's actually a pretty good game, with scores in the high 80s and 90s being absolutely great games. Review scores are clearly fucked up.
But on the plus side, I guess this means that SEGA will be delisting every actual Sonic game they currently have listed in the first place.
(If the article is right, there will be no actual Sonic games: All Stars Racing is a spin-off racing game that only has Sonic in the title for the sake of having Sonic in it, it's not really a Sonic game at all. And Genesis Collection is just that, a collection of Genesis titles on there. There are Sonic games, but there are a lot of games that aren't Sonic games too. So that means all the actual Sonic games will be gone to make room for the new ones. Hurray! More shelf space for games that are actually good in stores.)
Also, this is why review scores are fail. If "75 or lower" is what we consider average on a scale of 1 through 100, there is something wrong here. 50 is average, 75 should mean that it's actually a pretty good game, with scores in the high 80s and 90s being absolutely great games. Review scores are clearly fucked up.
But on the plus side, I guess this means that SEGA will be delisting every actual Sonic game they currently have listed in the first place.
(If the article is right, there will be no actual Sonic games: All Stars Racing is a spin-off racing game that only has Sonic in the title for the sake of having Sonic in it, it's not really a Sonic game at all. And Genesis Collection is just that, a collection of Genesis titles on there. There are Sonic games, but there are a lot of games that aren't Sonic games too. So that means all the actual Sonic games will be gone to make room for the new ones. Hurray! More shelf space for games that are actually good in stores.)
Well, looks like I have some more reasons to spend some of my burn money and grab these before they're gone.Logan Westbrook said:Sega Dumping Substandard Sonic Games
Wave goodbye to the likes of Sonic Unleashed [http://www.amazon.com/Sonic-Unleashed-Nintendo-Wii/dp/B0017HIIWW/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1286471334&sr=1-1], because from now on you'll only be able to get them from the pre-owned section.
Sega is delisting a number of Sonic the Hedgehog games, thereby removing them from retailer's shelves, in order to strengthen the brand and prevent any confusion among consumers when Sonic Colors [http://www.amazon.com/Sonic-Colors-Nintendo-Wii/dp/B002I0IIPY/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1286471378&sr=1-1] and Sonic Free Riders [http://www.amazon.com/Sonic-Free-Riders-Xbox-360/dp/B002I0HEI6/ref=sr_1_4?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1286471403&sr=1-4] are released later in the year.
Any Sonic game with an "average" Metacritic score - presumably anything lower than 75 - is being dropped, leaving only a handful of games still standing. When you factor in the age of most of the "surviving" games, it's likely that only Sonic & Sega All Star Racing [http://www.amazon.com/Sonic-Sega-All-Stars-Racing-Xbox-360/dp/B002BRYHUY/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1286471449&sr=1-1] and Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection [http://www.amazon.com/Sonics-Ultimate-Genesis-Collection-Xbox-360/dp/B001G3AZS2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1286471475&sr=1-1] - which is only nominally a Sonic game anyway - will still be available to purchase new.
Jurgen Post, Sega's senior vice president for the Europe, Middle East and Africa territories, said that the delisting would be very important when more big Sonic games were released. He said that Sega could make a lot of money on Sonic back catalogue titles, but didn't want to run into problems of cannibalizing its own sales.
It's really hard to see this as anything other than a smart move, especially as it's not the poorly selling Sonic games that Sega is removing, it's the poorly reviewed ones. If you're trying to revitalize a brand, distancing it from the things that brought it down in the first place is a great idea.
Source: MCV [http://www.mcvuk.com/news/41217/Sub-standard-Sonics-de-listed]
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If anyone is interested in which games made this list, here they are:
http://www.metacritic.com/search/game/sonic/results?sort=score
Sadly, Sonic Chronicles was on the Average part of the scale at 74, so if you can find it, buy it.
But...I LIKED the Sonic Adventure games...it was Sonic Heroes and after that they went down the toilet.
True, because after all, Sonic games don't suck, we just don't understand them...Xanadu84 said:
It's quite amusing that Sega's best answer against the criticism of their many awful Sonic titles is to essentially pretend that they never happened.