Q&A: George Harrison and Simon Jeffery on the Mario/Sonic Deal
GameDaily BIZ: Should we take this as a sign that Nintendo and Sega will be working together more and more in the future? Is this a budding relationship?
Simon Jeffery: At this point we wouldn't rule anything out, but there's nothing else in the pipe that we're ready to talk about right now. We're absolutely thrilled that Nintendo and Sega are working together on a project of this magnitude, and that's quite sufficient for the time being, we think.
George Harrison: We've come a long way from the intense, but productive competition of the '90s to this point, and I think it's very encouraging - two great franchise characters, and the involvement of Mr. Miyamoto to provide his advice and counsel. So I think the success of this will help map out their future.
[ "Perrin Kaplan actually told us yesterday that [Miyamoto's] involvement is way more than a lot of normal Nintendo games. And his blessing is really quite a landmark for a game like this that's being built outside of Nintendo itself." - Simon Jeffery ]
BIZ: Mario and Sonic obviously have a lot of nostalgic appeal to gamers in my generation, but do you think this team up matters as much to the younger generation that didn't grow up with these characters on the early Nintendo and Sega platforms? Will it resonate with the younger crowd?
SJ: Absolutely, very much so. We fully believe that one of the reasons that both Mario and Sonic have had such incredible longevity in the marketplace is that they have this wide-ranging appeal. And kids, whenever they start playing games when they're very young, at 5 or 6 these days, instantly gravitate towards these two characters. And we're certainly seeing with recent Sonic games... there's the TV cartoon that's still running and recent Sonic games have very quickly found an audience with young kids. So we totally believe that as well as lapsed gamers and existing gamers who have been asking for a game like this for such a long time, we think kids who have found both characters will immediately gravitate towards this game.
GH: I think the history of our industry shows that there are probably no two characters that have had this kind of longevity, and part of that is just the continuing reintroduction of these characters, Sonic and Mario, to new gamers as they enter [gaming], whether it's through a handheld system or through a console. And we've been more successful than probably any other publishers in the industry at doing this over the years.
BIZ: Olympics-based titles have historically not been very good and have not sold all that well. The choice of genre for this Mario and Sonic team up seems strange. Why the Olympics?
SJ: Well, in some ways you've answered the question there, because Nintendo and Sega have been getting on pretty well for a few years now and Sonic games have done very well on the Nintendo platforms recently, like GameCube, GBA and DS. So we've been looking for some commonality between the publishers/companies that we would be able to bring these two characters together, and we felt the Olympics was the perfect event, a perfect environment to do that. Olympics games have pretty much had the same gameplay mechanism since the beginning of the video game days. The games that really stand out as fun and family oriented are like the Epyx Summer Games and Winter Games, and we felt that having a lot of that more fun, family oriented gameplay would be perfect for bringing Sonic and Mario together in an Olympics environment. The game will play very differently from those traditional, standard Olympics ****games, and we think that will open up whole new areas of sports on the Wii and the DS that will take advantage of both the gameplay **** of the Sonic games and the Mario games as well.
BIZ: Is this partnership perhaps an indicator that we might indeed see Sonic make an appearance in the upcoming Wii title Super Smash Bros. Brawl?
GH: We can't really comment on any sort of hidden characters in Smash Bros. at this point. Simon did reference that we've had a growing cooperation and respect over the last few years, and I think each success builds on itself. So we expect this game to be very successful. I am a little concerned about Sonic's speed when he's racing Mario in a footrace, so we'll have to see how we can equalize that.
BIZ: Yuji Naka is obviously involved with his own projects at Prope studio, but as the creator of Sonic was he consulted at all about this move? Does it have his blessing?
SJ: Yuji Naka's first games with Prope are being done in conjunction with Sega and he's still a very good friend of the family. He hasn't actually been actively involved in the development of this game, but he was fully aware of the discussions going up to it and it absolutely has his blessing.
BIZ: And how much involvement will Miyamoto have in the daily development process? How much is he steering the project?
SJ: The game itself is absolutely being built as a joint venture between Nintendo and Sega. The predominant game development is being done by Sega's sports team and with a fair amount of help from outside companies, and also from Nintendo themselves. Mr. Miyamoto is very heavily involved in the overall direction of the game, the gameplay mechanics, at an executive producer sort of level. He's looking at every milestone, he's giving up suggestions and directions, and Perrin Kaplan actually told us yesterday that his involvement is way more than a lot of normal Nintendo games. And his blessing is really quite a landmark for a game like this that's being built outside of Nintendo itself.
BIZ: The Sonic franchise, especially with the recent games on PS3 and 360, has sort of seen a drop off in quality over the years. The games have not been received all that well and the franchise could use a jumpstart. Do you see this team up with Mario as a way of reinvigorating Sonic or refreshing the brand?
SJ: I think that's a very fair question. The Sonic games of late... the better games have been on the Nintendo platforms. Sonic Rush on the DS last year was a really good game. Sonic and the Secret Rings on the Wii is a great game as well. It's selling really strongly and is definitely one of the Wii platform favorites at the moment. So it feels like Sonic and the Sonic games have an affinity for the Nintendo platforms anyway, and we're happy to extend that. But you're right in that Sega has been looking to reinvigorate the Sonic franchise and inject some more quality into the games going forward. And we feel this is a great opportunity to work with Nintendo to do that.
BIZ: And in terms of the "innovate usage" of controls, how do you avoid that mini-game syndrome that a lot of Wii games have at the moment, where it's fun for a little bit but then the gamer gets bored?
SJ: I think that's one of the beauties of the Olympics; rather than just a series of mini-games thrown onto a disc together, this is a series of events with a cast of characters, not just Sonic and Mario, that have their own specialties and traits and strengths and weaknesses. There's far more of a competitive Olympian feel to the game than just playing one-off. So gamers will be driven once they finish one event and are successful in it to move to the next event on a competitive basis.
BIZ: Finally, how does this move to team up Sonic and Mario fit in with your companies' respective strategies for the video game industry going forward?
GH: I think on the behalf on Nintendo, certainly we're a lot more open to any variety of possibilities than we were a decade ago when we believed that everything we needed to do we could do internally. And so, opening our minds to what consumers might be interested in and what really strong partnerships might be possible is what has led us down the path of working more closely with Sega.
SJ: And from Sega's perspective, it's a brave new world. We think the video game industry is probably at its most exciting point in its entire history and collaborations like this are what is going to drive the industry forward and open it up to more people. We believe we want the market to be as wide and as mass as humanly possible. One of the fun things about this industry is it does still feel new; it does still feel fresh. And there is the opportunity to innovate and invigorate like this partnership is doing.
BIZ: Do you think a title like this might be more appealing in certain regions of the world, or is it fairly global?
SJ: Absolutely global. That's one of the beauties of this relationship, that Sega and Nintendo have strength in every one of those territories right around the world and so do these two iconic game characters. There's no one region in the world where they're stronger or weaker; they're strongly, 100 percent recognized everywhere.
GH: And the Olympics themselves are really a worldwide phenomenon that should be able to draw traffic and interest even in some of our smaller countries in Europe and other places.
BIZ: But what about the fact that the Olympics don't exactly get huge TV ratings here in America? Will that affect interest in the game?
SJ: Not at all. The Olympics is a perfect setting for this game because it's not a sports sim. It's a fun, family interactive product.
GH: Millions of families still watch the Olympics, so there's still a huge audience based on the Olympic interest.
BIZ: Thanks very much for your time guys.
Log in to comment