Reboots in plural: it’s a little hard to imagine how it should be interpreted, but the SEGA president was likely referring to rethinking spin-offs.

Yukio Sugino, SEGA’s president, and COO, spoke about the blue hedgehog in an interview with Famitsu. This interview was translated into English by VGC. In it, Sugino confirmed that in addition to new games, remakes of older titles could be made and that reboots are being considered. However, they are not taking this view for all their IP but instead looking at what would be most viable for particular intellectual property.

“We must do new things, but not all IPs are the same for new releases and reboots. For each IP, we will choose which method is appropriate at this time. Sonic is Sega’s flagship IP, and we are considering reboots and remakes for it in parallel with new titles,” said Sugino. Takashi Iizuka, Sonic’s creative director of Sonic, told VGC during Summer Game Fest that the resurrection of Samba de Amigo could bring back other series that have been neglected these days (such as Nights or Burning Rangers).

“I can’t say yes to anything right now. I’m the creative officer for Sonic the Hedgehog, so I’m focused on that side of the business. So I can’t speak for anyone else, but Sonic Team in Japan has been ramping up and hiring many people recently – they have more people than ever. So there may be some future where you’ll be hearing about these kinds of titles,” said Iizuka. Last year on Bloomberg, we also reported that Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio were getting big-budget reboots and would be the first titles in the Super Game initiative (“the development of AAA titles that cross over Sega’s comprehensive range of technologies”).

SEGA recently announced a new Sonic game, Sonic Superstars (a four-player side-scrolling platformer), being developed by Arzest. This studio is headed by Sonic’s original creator, Naoto Ohshima.

Source: VGC