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News Sega: The impact of “other major titles” hurt sales of Sonic Superstars

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ItWasMeantToBe19

Manakete
"Q: What do you see as the reason for the lower-than-expected start of Sonic Superstars?"

"A: We believe that the impact of other companies' major title released at the same time is significant, but we plan to expand the promotion towards the holiday season, especially in overseas market. Both theMetacritic score and user score are higher than SONIC FRONTIERS, and we would like to continue to sell firmly."

Let's find the bastards that decided that Sonic Superstars had to release the same week as Mario Wonder!

 
Yeah, they're not going to match frontiers because that was a highly requested shake up of the 3d gameplay while sonic superstars is very much more of the same of 2d sonics.

The follow up to frontiers is also going to sell worse unless it's a massive step up in quality because you only get the acceptance of making something new despite it being janky once
 
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I misread the title ("it" instead of "this") and I thought SEGA wanted to make the director of Mario Wonder personally pay for it, that son of bitch
 
I feel like there's a version of the "Hare and Turtle" story in there, but instead of a turtle, you have a chubby elephant plumber.
 
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Linkstrikesback said:
Yeah, they're not going to march frontiers because that was a highly requested shake up of the 3d gameplay while sonic superstars is very much more of the same of 2d sonics.

The follow up to frontiers is also going to sell worse unless it's a massive step up in quality because you only get the acceptance of making something new despite it being janky once
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From all of their investor relations content, they genuinely do not seem to understand this point at all, lol.

They think because Frontiers sold a lot, that means all Sonic games are going to sell a lot. This was basically their entire reasoning for projecting massive sales for Superstars. Incredible company.
 
They are both very good games, even if I have problems with both (Mario doesn't let you be an actual player in the game because the art direction is more important than actually play, Sonic is awesome but unfortunatelly lasts 12 minutes).
 
boodream said:
They are both very good games, even if I have problems with both (Mario doesn't let you be an actual player in the game because the art direction is more important than actually play, Sonic is awesome but unfortunatelly lasts 12 minutes).
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Wh... what ?
 
boodream said:
Well, if you disagree, your actual opinion is more interesting than a fake question :)
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I’ll bite. Mario wonder has good art direction, yes, but most of the wonder seeds introduce either a new or expanded upon gameplay gimmick, and by the end it’s one of the most varied games in terms of gameplay yet. I don’t view gameplay as having been sacrificed in the least to accommodate the aesthetics.
 
Wow, who could have seen that coming. A mediocre 2D platformer releasing the same day as Super Mario Bros for $60 sold less than a mediocre open world 3D game that was $30 off on day one? But the metacritic user score is higher!
 
Yeah, Sega is gonna push another Dark Age for Sonic the Hedgehog. The only redeeming quality is the movie, but with that attitude, theyll eff up
 
boodream said:
Mario doesn't let you be an actual player in the game because the art direction is more important than actually play
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Mario Wonder is not a game I would describe as prioritizing art direction over gameplay. There's gameplay in spades.
 
boodream said:
Well, if you disagree, your actual opinion is more interesting than a fake question :)
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I mean... ok. My opinion while I find that the difficulty of the game is a bit backloaded, SMW has some of the most satisfying gameplay and physics in a platformer. You could trip that art direction away, it'd still be a wonderfully playable game.
 
ziggyrivers said:
It surprises me that a video game company executive mentioned Meta Critic scores. Has this been done before? And I don’t mean marketing materials
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Microsoft argued to the FTC that Call of Duty wasn't a very important game franchise because Ghost of Tsushima had a higher user average on Metacritic.

(I think Metacritic is mostly implicitly mentioned, but review scores are cared about a lot as they do matter)
 
ProteusRidley said:
ah, as i stated in August Sega



I really don't know what Sega expected
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Realistically they didn't have much choice. By the time mario wonder was announced and got its release date, it was late June. Sega would pretty much already have been locked in on a targeted release date and have already gotten deep in to arranging various marketing for around the date, as well as prepared orders for discs/cards for those production times. By the direct where they got this information, all they could do would have been burn a pile of cash delaying it and wrecking their marketing and financial plans, or hope the effect wouldn't be too bad.
 
ziggyrivers said:
It surprises me that a video game company executive mentioned Meta Critic scores. Has this been done before? And I don’t mean marketing materials
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I’ve heard of financial compensation for developers being tied to a game’s metacritic score, so yes, it’s something publishing executives track.
 
Kinda funny that a few weeks ago there was that quote about how they still want to compete with Mario and now the vibe is "c'mon guys, we can't compete with Mario"

Sega is genuinely a baffling company sometimes
 
I would be lying if I said I wasn't experiencing a little bit of schadenfreude after their "pixel graphics make games sell worse" statements
 
They're clearly talking about spiderman!!!

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BlackthornOrion said:
Kinda funny that a few weeks ago there was that quote about how they still want to compete with Mario and now the vibe is "c'mon guys, we can't compete with Mario"

Sega is genuinely a baffling company sometimes
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Marketing/financial team vs developers
 
Reminds me of Capcom blaming Mario galaxy for the low sales of Zack and Wiki on Wii.

Just release Sonic Superstars Plus next year to fix this, Sega. And don't forget to add Rouge and Big the Cat as playable characters!
 
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Sega's lack of self-awareness is always hilarious. I hope they never change.
 
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Linkstrikesback said:
Yeah, they're not going to match frontiers because that was a highly requested shake up of the 3d gameplay while sonic superstars is very much more of the same of 2d sonics.
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If by "more of the same" you mean "worse by most measures" then yes, I agree. They released a 2D Sonic with an incredibly bland art style with some genuinely baffling gameplay decisions and particularly un-fun and frustrating bosses during the same week that a beautiful, new, and creative 2D Mario game was releasing (although Mario Wonder doesn't really do most of its bosses in a great way, either, but at least they're not annoying).
 
The irony of Sonic being a blue blur yet forever in the shadow of a plumber from Brooklyn.
 
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boodream said:
They are both very good games, even if I have problems with both (Mario doesn't let you be an actual player in the game because the art direction is more important than actually play, Sonic is awesome but unfortunatelly lasts 12 minutes).
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Did an AI write this?
 
ziggyrivers said:
It surprises me that a video game company executive mentioned Meta Critic scores. Has this been done before? And I don’t mean marketing materials
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Even Nintendo did this back during Wii U days to try and please shareholders by claiming that at least their products were more quality
 
blondkayvon said:
If by "more of the same" you mean "worse by most measures" then yes, I agree. They released a 2D Sonic with an incredibly bland art style with some genuinely baffling gameplay decisions and particularly un-fun and frustrating bosses during the same week that a beautiful, new, and creative 2D Mario game was releasing (although Mario Wonder doesn't really do most of its bosses in a great way, either, but at least they're not annoying).
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Yep, that sounds like a sonic game from the GBA era onwards alright.

The art style is fine. At some point people are going to have to get over the fact that sprites are only for a subset of a niche of people 30+ desperate for a period when the industry was much smaller, and are an active detriment to sales potential. I don't know how much more on the wall the writing can be when sonic mania could only do a million units in just under a year despite being a budget title and getting double dippers with an expansion rerelease.
 
Asking $60 for something below the quality standards set by Mania (which was 20) also probably didn't help.

I can see the game having legs though, but on a very high discounted price.
 
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Linkstrikesback said:
Yep, that sounds like a sonic game from the GBA era onwards alright.

The art style is fine. At some point people are going to have to get over the fact that sprites are only for a subset of a niche of people 30+ desperate for a period when the industry was much smaller, and are an active detriment to sales potential. I don't know how much more on the wall the writing can be when sonic mania could only do a million units in just under a year despite being a budget title and getting double dippers with an expansion rerelease.
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Me saying what I said about the art style has nothing to do with it being 3D vs 2D. I think there's a way to do 3D and it to still look good. Sonic Superstars' art style is actively nothing. It's there. It's not offensive, but it exists. Sonic has looked way better in 3D for a much longer time. For Superstars, there's like zero personality or style to any of the characters in the game, which IMO is hard to do because Sonic character designs are S tier.
 
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Yamanoi said:
Did an AI write this?
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That's what I'm asking myself about all the the time times you are trying to be funny, but I always thought this would be lame on my part to be aggressive because what I like in here is we don't have to be unpleasant to express our opinions.
 
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Tangerine_Cookie said:
No, I think that question was more than real. I also can't understand that take and would like clarification.
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I already explained it is the Mario Wonder thread. I absolutely love Mario, but I just felt, personally, that it was more bautfiful and fun to hear and to see than actually challenging to play. And, as a fan, I'm sad about that.
 
Well, this was already a known thing months before wonder releases. They could have delayed and release it at another date
 
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I feel like people aren't understanding a few things here or misremembering how things went this year. Sega announced Sonic Superstars before Nintendo announced Wonder and if I remember right Sega announced the release date around the time Wonder was announced and dated. So do people think Nintendo told Sega about Wonder and it's release date or do people think Sega should have delayed Superstars once Wonder's date was announced for the same week? Because I doubt Nintendo told them to avoid leaks and if Sega did delay it then people would say Sega is scared of Wonder and have no confidence in their product. And for the sake of clarity we have to remember release dates are planned in advance and I highly doubt Sega knew Nintendo was releasing a Mario platformer this year and even if they did they would have assumed it was releasing in November and not October.
 
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Sega:
Step 1: Has a hit with Sonic Mania with an all star development team that has had the highest metacritic score for the series in decades.

Step 2: Not allow that team to make sonic again

Step 3: Hire the developers that consistently released critical and commercial failures and have that game be 3 times the price of the previous game.

Step 4: Blame Nintendo for their failure.
 
boodream said:
I already explained it is the Mario Wonder thread. I absolutely love Mario, but I just felt, personally, that it was more bautfiful and fun to hear and to see than actually challenging to play. And, as a fan, I'm sad about that.
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Mario... Challenging...
Yeah aside from 1 and losts levels (2) the heck you're talking about.
 
If Sega wanted the game to do well idk maybe they shoulda made a good game. that'd be a good step one
 
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