Sonic the Hedgehog creator reveals "mixed feelings" about Sonic games on non-Sega consoles

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Yuji Naka reflects on Sonic Adventure 2: Battle’s 20 year anniversary

sonic adventure
(Image credit: Sega)

Sonic the Hedgehog creator Yuji Naka has revealed that he had "mixed feelings" about releasing a game on a non-Sega console. 

In a tweet, which shared another tweet celebrating the 20th anniversary of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, Naka wrote: "I had mixed feelings about Sonic's run on non-Sega hardware, both sad and happy. It's been 20 years now." The video game designer didn’t elaborate on his tweet any further so it’s not clear what his initial concerns were. 

Clearly, Naka found peace with Sega’s decision to release a Sonic the Hedgehog game on a non-Sega console as Sonic Adventure 2: Battle was released on Nintendo GameCube back in 2001. We can see why Naka would have been a little protective of the blue hedgehog though considering he was part of the original Sonic Team line up and was responsible for programming the original Sonic the Hedgehog for Sega Megadrive. 

More recently, Naka was working at Square Enix instead where he developed Balan Wonderworld. However, as of June last year, Naka quietly left the studio, potentially due to the underwhelming success of the platformer game. 

If you’re wondering what Sonic Team is up to these days, there’s some good news. The team behind the likes of Sonic Forces, Sonic Generations, and more is working on a new game. Sonic: Frontiers was initially revealed during the Sonic Central Stream back in May 2021 and received another, longer, trailer at The Game Awards 2021.

Want to know more about Sega’s upcoming open-world Sonic game? Find out why Sega is “focused on bringing Sonic to the next level” in Sonic Frontiers. 

Hope Bellingham
Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.