SEGA boss on Sonic Frontiers success, considering remakes and reboots

SEGA president and COO Yukio Sugino has commented on the success of Sonic Frontiers as well as interest in approaches like remakes and reboots.

Sugino’s comments came as part of an interview published in a recent issue of Japanese magazine Famitsu. He was first asked about what was memorable last year, to which he pointed to the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 movie as well as Sonic Frontiers. The Switch title, which is also available on other platforms, “managed to sell more copies than we anticipated.”

Sugino said:

Sugino: Of course, first I have to mention Sonic Frontiers. With Utsumi (Mr. Shuji, vice president, representative director and co-COO of SEGA) at the center, a multitude of projects meant to make Sonic even bigger than before progressed to the point of bearing fruit. In April last year, the movie Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was released in North America, which fortunately resulted in a good start, allowing our global revenue to reach over about 570 million yen. We released Sonic Frontiers on the back of that, and managed to sell more copies than we anticipated. That in itself was heartening, we were also happy to receive a lot of messages, mainly from North American fans, expressing joy that Sonic was moving towards a good direction.

More discussion of Sonic came about later in the interview while discussing Samba de Amigo: Party Central. That one isn’t a reboot, and although Sonic Superstars isn’t either, “we want to have some elements of a reboot in there as well.”

Finally, Sugino indicated that SEGA is “considering reboots and remakes alongside new entries,” again while speaking about Sonic the Hedgehog.

Our translation is as follows:

Since a new entry in the Samba de Amigo series is set to come out later, will more old IPs receive reboots as well?

Sugino: To me, Samba de Amigo: Party Central wasn’t a reboot, but a new entry in the series. On the other hand, Sonic Superstars that was announced the other day is a return to the 2D action of the past, so while it is a new entry, we want to have some elements of a reboot in there as well.

So while Sonic Frontiers was a new challenge for the Sonic series, Sonic Superstars will have facets of a reboot.

Sugino: Of course, we must do new things, but we are not doing both new entries and reboots for every IP. With the mindset of “this is the best way of doing things for this IP”, we choose and move forward with the appropriate option based on the timing for every IP. Sonic is SEGA’s iconic IP, so we are considering reboots and remakes alongside new entries.

Sonic Frontiers is out now on Switch while Sonic Frontiers will follow this fall. Samba de Amigo: Party Central will be available on August 29, 2023.

Translation provided by Simon Griffin and SatsumaFS on behalf of Nintendo Everything.