Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka says he would love every Sonic game to be available on modern consoles, but thinks the effort involved would be better spent on new titles.
In case you weren't aware, there's a whole lot of Sonic games out there. Since 1991, there's been as many mainline console games as the entirety of Mario's mainline console and handheld games (that's with a six-year head start). But unlike Mario, where three of the New Super Mario Bros games and 3D Land are the extent of what you cannot play on the Switch consoles right now, there are a lot of Sonic Games that are simply unavailable on modern platforms.
And while some may be happy with not having the ability to play Sonic Heroes, Sonic 2006 or Sonic Lost World on modern consoles, there are absolute bangers like Sonic Adventure 2, the Sonic Advance trilogy and Rush duo that can't be played on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch (PC does have a few of them available still, however).
When asked by YouTube creator Jeremy Klinger which Sonic game he would personally choose to be remade for the franchise's 35th anniversary this year, Iizuka responded, "When we think about all the games in the 35 years that Sonic has been out there, I really want to be able to play all of those old games on the modern platforms." He continues, saying if he could "magically do it," Izuka would "want every single Sonic game ever put out there to be playable now on current hardware."
Unfortunately, however, "The cost that it would take to actually bring those games and have them not just be ported over, but actually be remade and be full experiences on that hardware" would be "about the same resource, money, or people's time and energy as it would to make a brand new title." Iizuka adds, "We're really focused more on making new experiences to surprise people."
Granted, I think many people would be happy with simple ports at this point. And with the GameCube on Nintendo Switch Online, we can easily get the Adventure games and Heroes on there. The saving grace, however, is that many older ports of these games are available on PC, and with a fan community as passionate as Sonic's, those have been updated into really good versions. Or in the case of Sonic Unleashed, a whole PC version was made by the fanbase, which is by far the best way to play the game.
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