Gamedaily’s interview with SEGA and Nintendo has slightly more info. The game is being developed by SEGA sports with supervision by Shigeru Miyamoto. They’re considering ways to balance Sonic’s speed in a race. And to those wondering about whether SEGA has gotten the message in the overall response to STH360, this quote is interesting:
BIZ: The Sonic franchise, especially with the recent games on PS3 and 360, has sort of seen a drop off in quality over the years. The games have not been received all that well and the franchise could use a jumpstart. Do you see this team up with Mario as a way of reinvigorating Sonic or refreshing the brand?
SJ: I think that’s a very fair question. The Sonic games of late… the better games have been on the Nintendo platforms. Sonic Rush on the DS last year was a really good game. Sonic and the Secret Rings on the Wii is a great game as well. It’s selling really strongly and is definitely one of the Wii platform favorites at the moment. So it feels like Sonic and the Sonic games have an affinity for the Nintendo platforms anyway, and we’re happy to extend that. But you’re right in that Sega has been looking to reinvigorate the Sonic franchise and inject some more quality into the games going forward. And we feel this is a great opportunity to work with Nintendo to do that.
Newsweek’s interview says that Shigeru Miyamoto will have more involvement in this game than on the average Nintendo title.
Separately, is there a plan to revitalize Sonic on other platforms? Or is this a sign that it just makes more sense in the future to focus Sonic on Nintendo platforms where the product quality has been good and where there may be more audience affinity?
We are actually undergoing a fairly considerable refresh of Sonic as an intellectual property, as a character. Sonic on the Wii is probably the first product that’s come to market that reflects that. We’re not going to be bringing another game out on the other platforms for quite some time, because we feel that it is time to reinvent Sonic, to make Sonic contemporary again. At the same time, even the recent 360 and Playstation 3 games have sold extremely well. Sonic is still an extremely endearing character; there’s still a lot of love for Sonic out there in consumerland.