The head of Sonic Team has confirmed that Sonic the Hedgehog games will continue to be developed for home consoles, despite Sega’s recent mobile-focused restructuring.
In an interview with Japanese site 4gamer, Takashi Iizuka was asked whether there was a possibility that the future of the iconic blue hedgehog lay exclusively on smart phones, in light of the recent Japanese release of freemium mobile title, Sonic Runners. He replied: “Currently, we don’t [have that plan and intention]. Now, for this product only, we selected the smart phone/mobile as a friendly platform for the users [of this game] because it is F2P and therefore it was suitable for there. Personally, I don’t plan to stop Sonic for home video game consoles. Don’t worry about them! And enjoy!”
The confirmation is sure to come either as a relief to diehard fans of the franchise, or as bad news to those who were stung by the troubled release of Sonic Boom for the Wii U late last year.
Thanks to the user 360 over at Sonic Retro for the translation.