According to Shuji Utsumi, president of the Japanese company, the game simply did not reach the level SEGA expected…

Utsumi told Eurogamer that at least the latest installment in the franchise, Sonic X Shadow Generations, is doing well. But before that, Sonic Superstars fell short of SEGA’s expectations, and he was very disappointed with that game. However, he went into more detail about why he was disappointed with that game in the franchise:

“We tried to do something creative with Sonic Frontiers. With Sonic Superstars, it turned out to be a disappointment in terms of the result compared to what we delivered. This time we have Sonic X Shadow Generations and the next Sonic movie, so we’re pushing things in the transmedia direction – movies and games working in harmony to make things bigger. But the core [of the experience] is the game. The game has to be very good, otherwise there is no transmedia effect,” Utsumi said. So this time, he didn’t blame Super Mario Bros. Wonder (since the two games were released in the same week).

Makoto Takahashi, vice president in charge of SEGA Sammy Holdings, and Nobuaki Yoshii, director of the IR/SR division, commented on the poor performance of Sonic Superstars during the company’s Q&A session: “Although Sonic Superstars was generally well received by those who played it, the timing of its launch coincided with competing titles in the same genre, and it fell short of the initial forecast. The strategic expansion of the Sonic IP is progressing well, and we will continue to work to increase repeat sales of this title.” The key phrase is “a competing title in the same genre”. This was a reference to Nintendo’s game.

Sonic will of course go further, as a new racing game from the IP was announced at The Game Awards (this has been in the news before), but we don’t know much about what exactly will come of it. Maybe we’ll know more next year.

Source: VGC