SEGA France spokesman Franck Sebastien recently conducted an interview with DigitalGames.fr, which has conveniently been dubbed over with an English voice as he talks about the popularity of their mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog, among different age groups.



For those who can't see it, Sebastien starts off by talking about the Dreamcast's late-but-long-lasting popularity, all over footage of all sorts of pieces from SEGA's history. He then goes into SEGA's decision to instead move into software, and how that brought them closer to Nintendo.

He points out that good games, such as the then-new franchise of Super Monkey Ball came about, along with some sequels to other franchises, but that titles were few, with some "lacking a little extra spark."

Sebastien says that today, fans can see that SEGA is back on track with "very unique titles, very good games, and very diverse and well-conceived offerings." He adds that what they are "doing best" at SEGA now are console exclusives. And while not everything is an exclusive, when they work on Wii, for example, they put a lot of effort into it, and not just port something else.

"It's not about preferences, we're just trying to adapt to the public who bought that specific system."

Moving on to Sonic, he says he can understand all the criticisms being made toward 3D Sonic games, including Sonic Unleashed. He notes that while journalists didn't like the werehog portions, children really did, and that while nostalgic gamers will "really like" Project Needlemouse, today's kids are the core audience for Sonic games, TV shows, etc, which have "really boosted" Sonic's popularity.

He adds that today, when they bring Sonic costumes out into the streets, they hear kids of only about six or seven yelling "Sonic, we love you!" and that they can't make the same games for them that they would for gamers who are 25-30 years old.

"When we're making a 3D Sonic game," Sebastien says, "we're very careful, even tough it doesn't please journalists and hardcore gamers, but we're doing studies with kids in France, Germany, Spain, etc., in order to know what kids want to see in Sonic games."

"And the werehog part in Sonic Unleashed? They love it," he says, adding "it's their favorite part of the game, where lots of journalists told me 'it sucks, it's boring!' Well, maybe, but on the other hand, they aren't my core audience."

With Project Needlemouse, he notes, the idea is to please all the hardcore gamers, because "we love them at SEGA; we're still doing lots of games for hardcore gamers, so we're really happy they're around."

He goes on to note that when SEGA left the hardware business, there was a natural gravitation toward Nintendo, with whom they had essentially built this game culture together ("along with Atari, of course"). He adds that Mario and Sonic coming together was a great thing, a bit of a shock at first, but that gamers have really embraced it.