Most of us millennials, at some point or another, remember that first time we experienced the blue streak speeding by. Heck, I remember Christmas 1992, when I was four-years-old and unwrapped the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Sega Genesis bundle from “Santa.” Sadly, there have been few Sonic memories worth noting since those Genesis days.
Earlier today, Sega released their latest financial report, with the Sonic Boom titles selling a collective equivalent of 490,000 units. And yes, that is for both Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric for Wii U and Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal for 3DS. This makes the new series — which launched in conjunction with a Sonic Boom CG-animated TV series on Cartoon Network — the lowest-selling game in Sonic’s nearly 25 year history.
This is not the first low point in this game’s short lifespan. Not only was it critically panned, but the game also shipped with a glitch that allowed players to skip most of the game entirely.
If only that scarf could’ve saved Sonic…
Sonic has been on the decline. The second lowest selling game was not so far off, but the last game in the franchise — Sonic Lost World for the Wii U and 3DS in 2013 — which sold a collective 710,000 combined copies. These last two games also come off of Sega’s exclusivity deal with Nintendo. Say what you will, but Sonic with console-exclusivity is not working as well as it did when Sega had their own consoles.
Let’s put this in comparison to Sonic’s best-selling title: the original Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis in 1991. That game sold 15 million copies back when Sega did what Nintendon’t.
Team Sonic has been pushing out mediocre Sonic the Hedgehog games for a while now and the sales are no longer justifying slapping the Sonic name on a perfunctory platformer. It may be very well be time to give the blue hedgehog and his gang some much-needed time off and craft a game worthy of a return.
What do you think: should Team Sonic try and go for a quick recovery, take some time off, or let the franchise go by way of Gex the Gecko?
