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Sonic without Sega?


neezTHEhuman

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You might have read on this site or elsewhere that Sega have made staggering losses over the last year and that cuts will be made across the board. This got me imagining what if hypothetically speaking Sega went bankrupt and ceased to exist; would that also be the end of the road for Sonic? Would other developers and publishers be interested in continuing the franchise and if so which ones, also could Sega employees get together and form a small independent studio? Hopefully this nightmare scenario cannot and never will happen but I think it would be interesting (and help to put my mind at rest) to explore the possibilities (Sonic at Nintendo, Capcom, Namco? etc)

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Nintendo might want to take up the franchise now that it's climbing out of the pit created by Sonic '06, if for no other reason than to say "yeah, we own our mascot's oldest rival, what now bitches?"

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I honestly think that if Sega goes down they'll probably take Sonic down with them.

But really, the only company I can really trust is Nintendo cause of Sega and Nintendo history together. I don't trust anybody to handled the franchise especially if a videogame company really don't know anything about Sonic. They'll probably completely changed him. It won't feel the same anymore.

Edited by sonfan1984
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Once Sonic replaced Alex Kidd I think that was their mascot before he became THE Sega mascot. He became the heart and soul of Sega. Like sonfan1984 said above, I couldn't really see them giving up their mascot to someone else, even IF Sega ceased to exist...

With that said though, one OTHER thing could happen, but I REALLY doubt it. Yuji Naka and Probe could pick up the franchise, and continue to make Sonic games. Who knows? Maybe that could even bring Probe higher up the scale, so they wouldn't be such a small company...

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I hope this nightmare never happens, but if Sega were to someday go out of business, I suppose Nintendo would be the best company for Sonic to go to since they're probably the only company besides Sega that knows Sonic best. But still it would really break my heart to see Sonic being bought by another company. I do remember Sonic's "fans" claiming that Sonic would be better off if Sonic were to be sold to another company after 06 blew up the fan base but honestly, would another company picking buying Sonic make this franchise any better? Luckily, Sonic is out of the 06 pit so we shouldn't have to worry about this for awhile but from what I've seen anyway, video games bought by other companies often tend to do worse then when they were being developed by the companies that originally created them (such as the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon series). So would the quality of games actually improve at all if Sonic was picked up by another company, and more importantly would he even feel like Sonic anymore (I can't even recognize Crash and Spyro anymore :P)?

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I could forsee a fierce battle between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo to gain the rights to the classic 2d Sonic games. Perhaps if Nintendo won the rights to Sonic they could hire the taxman (CW) to give Sonic 1, 2, 3 HD and Widescreen.

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I made a topic like this a good deal of time ago.

Similar concept, save for the intended focus being that Sonic games ceased complete production altogether.

But to answer your question: would this be the end for Sonic? Well, we have no idea how popular or successful the gaming trends of today will be in the future. As it has been said so many times, everything will eventually come to an end, and even the most popular franchises and industries of any sort must suffer this fate. Honestly, I don't know how much more you could possibly further innovate the gaming genre.

It's a similar sort of case for Sonic. Even if another company steps up and buys the rights to it, they too will eventually crumble, and so continues this pattern until the games are no longer produced and Sonic is lost to the tides of time.

(If there's one group I'd have to feel exceptionally sorry for, it would be the super-fans who have been playing the games and collecting the merch since the very beginning. Wonder what would be going through their minds when their favorite franchise finally comes to an end.)

Edited by Place
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Trust me, fellow citizen. The one the uhh.. "sonic.. Hedgehog", is it? Is one supah dupah famous Video Gaming icon that everybody would b dying to get their hands on should SEGA let the ol' cookie crumble.

There's no way Sonic could die.

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Well, I see it this way, if SEGA closed their doors, they probably would, at first, take Sonic down with them. However, Sonic has a global amount of fans, I can see a lot of comapnies trying to buy the rights to him. For some reason, Nintendo tops it for me. I don't know why, but I always seen Sonic to fit the Nintendo family pretty well. The problem with that is Nintendo would need Sonic team. I don't believe a bunch of Nintendo employees would know how to make a good Sonic game -- it would be a totally different board than they're used to. Maybe a few Nintendo employees in the creative department, yes.

I can also see a bunch of well endowed of gaming knowledge fans doing their damnedest to keep the story alive. Making their own games and fan arts and comics and what-have-you. I wonder if the Archie Comics would die too. That seems to be a good seller, I'm sure Archie wants to keep that alive.

Edited by WIttyUsername
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I think if Sega ever went down, someone like Nintendo will buy the rights. Face it, no matter how bad the games been lately, it still sells like crazy. People will want it.

But I don't see anything happening like this in the near future.

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You know, I think I've answered this before, but I'd kinda hope that Nintendo wouldn't get the rights to Sonic in this event. Hell, I wouldn't want Microsoft or Sony to claim Sonic either; that'd lead to Sonic becoming console-exclusive again, and that'd suck for everyone except the company that bought him. Haha.

I'd want a few of the SEGA developers/diehard fans who really loved Sonic to step forward and make another group to buy back Sonic, then maybe make a few simple 2D games to build up cashflow before continuing right where they left off (With Generations, if we're assuming this would happen *now*). If that weren't possible, I think Ubisoft would do rather nicely with 2D games, Given Rayman Origins' success. Though we'd have to make sure "Raving Cream the Rabbid" never happens...

Worst case scenario is if Activision buys Sonic. In the coming years we'd get Sonic the Hedgehog 5, 6, RELOADED, 8, 9, 10, 11, Generations 2, 3, World Tour, 5, 6... and about 50 billion half-baked spinoffs on handhelds, then after driving the franchise into the ground, they'd blame the failure on the fans for losing interest in their 40000 games a year and shut down Sonic mid-game development. That and Sonic would get 4000x uglier because WTF Activision art team? They're addicted to making things ugly.

(Although when Crash went to Sierra, which had nothing to do with Activision, I thought they made his design (and everyone elses' too) 400x better. No idea why no one else thinks so. o: )

Edited by Wolfblur
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I bet Sega would consider about as many options as we can thing of, some would be adamant to let the franchise 'die in peace' others would want to see it continued badly enough to chance selling it, which staff would be saying what and who would get the final say not a clue...

Hell, selling Sonic may not even be possible because of copyright issues... (basically "Hey, you can't sell that, that's MINE!" arguments)

Who's likely to want the franchise most? I think Nintendo, they seem quite fond of it if the collaborative projects and positive feedback are anything to go by.

Edited by Mysterics
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To be honest, this isn't really a problem the franchise will have to face for a long long time. Sonic is one of the first and one of the most famous video game franchise (possibly franchise in general) in the world. There was a time where sonic was more popular than mickey mouse and sold millions around the world. Though sells might not be what the use to, sonic is still very popular. Though some of the news made about the franchise is negative, it still doesn't mean millions don't recognize him. This franchise is often considered one of the first that really brought the industry to light, so I doubt anyone is really ready to let it go like that. Besides, you have to remember that this franchise alone basically has held up sega for a good 7 years. No one can deny its a money maker. Not as big of one as mario or call of duty right now for sure, but still probably sells more than 2/3rds of the other games out. I wouldn't be surprised if companies fall head over heals to gain the rights to it if this horrible event was ever to happen.

As for the right company, I don't think there is a better one than nintendo. Since day one of the franchise existence, it was a head to head battle against mario. There's no company that knows the franchise better; what makes the games sell and what doesn't. Though the games probably won't come out as often as they do now, I have little doubt that nintendo could give the franchise justice.

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If Sega goes almost bankrupt, Nintendo buys them, making Sega plus its subsidiaries part of Nintendo, before pumping out AWESOME Nintendo x Sega games using Sega's IPs, and adding Sega characters to Smash Bros.

A nerd can dream. But really, that'd be good for everyone - Sega merges with Nintendo (or rather is entirely bought by it), the vast majority of Sega employees keep their job under Nintendo, Nintendo saves Sega's IPs and gains money too, and happy rainbows everywhere.

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A nerd can dream.

I think most of us sorta want that just because Nintendo knows how to make games. Just remember that Sonic isn't like Mario or Zelda. It has its own flavor. It can be very light hearted and then very dark. Though, that probably won't be too far of a stretch when you throw something like Zelda out as an example.

If it were ever to happen, they'd need Sonic Team. I mean, they really, really would need Sonic Team. The Team is the one who has the experience in making Sonic games. Nintendo would be confused, wouldn't know what to do with it. hopefully, though, some writers there are Sonic fans.

Still, I think that's a long way from happening, if it happens at all. SEGA's gonna keep making Sonic games. There's way too many fans and it brings them the most money.

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The only ones I'd trust with Sonic is Nintendo. They've had quite a history together and I would not doubt the employees' abilities to make a Sonic game. Also, I hope they'd axe Dimps and program competent physics.

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I'm personally against giving him to Nintendo. That would make him first-party again, and I'm not particularly fond of Nintendo's new consoles.

That said, they'd also probably the the best option for a number of other reasons, which I'm sure have already been listed. Better QA for one.

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I think most of us sorta want that just because Nintendo knows how to make games. Just remember that Sonic isn't like Mario or Zelda. It has its own flavor. It can be very light hearted and then very dark. Though, that probably won't be too far of a stretch when you throw something like Zelda out as an example.

If it were ever to happen, they'd need Sonic Team. I mean, they really, really would need Sonic Team. The Team is the one who has the experience in making Sonic games. Nintendo would be confused, wouldn't know what to do with it. hopefully, though, some writers there are Sonic fans.

Still, I think that's a long way from happening, if it happens at all. SEGA's gonna keep making Sonic games. There's way too many fans and it brings them the most money.

If Nintendo take over Sonic, they won't make it a mix of Mario and F-Zero or something. Nintendo knows what the fuck they're doing, and they're certainly not going to mis-use an IP - a famous one as that. If Nintendo bought Sonic and Sega died, I bet my ass Sonic Team would just go and become a Nintendo subsidiary, and the Nintendo Sonic Team would be made of all old members plus getting support from other Nintendo subsidiaries. And even if that wasn't the case, Nintendo wouldn't take away the spirit of the series, they know what they do, and they know changing the spirit of a new IP to make it more like the stuff they already have is a very bad idea.

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I feel like if SEGA died, Sonic would be the captain going down with the ship. But if another company did get him, I'd want it to be Nintendo, so they can have either EAD or Retro Studios develop. EAD because their games are always just bursting with insane amounts of creativity, Retro because they've shown they can take existing franchises and do great things with them.

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I don't think Nintendo would work with sonic because it's not really their way to do things. They are too proud of themselves to let any external character sneak, even if it's world-known sonic.

Capcom on the other hand I think could do a good job on sonic as a platformer franchise. But what I would honestly love to see would be a Sonic game made by platinum games. Even if it's an action spin-off. I'm really curious about what they could come up with. Though I think they're somehow affiliated to Sega :/

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I bet my ass Sonic Team would just go and become a Nintendo subsidiary, and the Nintendo Sonic Team would be made of all old members plus getting support from other Nintendo subsidiaries.

Remember that they're humans. In time they change hands, many of the team members would probably have gotten new jobs, and those jobs may be better than what Nintendo may offer them. That's just may.

And even if that wasn't the case, Nintendo wouldn't take away the spirit of the series, they know what they do, and they know changing the spirit of a new IP to make it more like the stuff they already have is a very bad idea.

It's not them intentionally changing Sonic. It's just the fact that Sonic's a completely different game from what they're used to. It's running at incredible speeds, not exploring around. Nintendo knows how to make games, that's for sure. They treat their creations well. I just wouldn't put too much faith on them. You're handing over something that's completely out of their ball park and expecting it to do better than someone who had it for years.

But who knows, they may surprise me -- if it happened.

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Sonic Team better be a 2nd party developer like Retro Studios for Nintendo. Sonic and Mario Olympic games sell too well for Nintendo to let it slide. Sonic is still massive popular as well as having too many dedicated fans that are emotionally attached to him around the world for the character and the franchise to die. SEGA knows this deep down, too.

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I think someone would buy the franchise. Its longevity at this point has at least proven that the franchise is considerably and consistently profitable. The industry would be mistaken to let it die for that reason alone. Who would get it is anyone's guess, although I put my money on the guys with the most money to blow on offers *shudders at EA*.

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...give Sonic to Prope... or Artoon.

Actually, Prope and Artoon should band together to make games based on some of SEGA's most cherished IPs, mainly from the old AM2 division, focusing mainly on Sonic.

Let's call them the "Sonic Team."

oshima-naka.jpg

...okay, in all due seriousness, I can see Nintendo taking care of Sonic and a few other SEGA characters. They make some fantastic games, and I'd like to see their take on Sonic or NiGHTS.

Edited by Holiday Rush
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