SEGA hope Sonic Prime provides strength to IP despite cuts in releases

Netflix’s animated series Sonic Prime is hoping to strengthen the Sonic IP. Even though it will release in 2022, it will be after the fiscal year where releases took a hit. They announced in 2020 that during the fiscal year, they were planning 30 game releases. For the obvious reasons of the global pandemic, they released 18 in that time frame. Senior Vice-President stated the following in the conference call:

The major factor has been delays in development, especially in the US and Europe due to the impact of lockdowns. Almost none of our employees have been able to commute to the office, and this is a big impact. About “Sonic Prime”, we’re not thinking of monetizing by itself. Our stance is to implement the “Sonic Prime” as part of strengthening the IP.

SEGASammy expects Sonic Prime to “strengthen” Sonic IP as pandemic slashes SEGA’s release schedule in nearly half – Tails’ Channel

In the same call, Owaki also said that the won’t have direct financial gains from the show. With this year being the 30th anniversary of the blue blur, it’s sad to hear that we won’t get a game release to celebrate. We’ve got the Netflix show, the announcement of the movie sequel, and the last big game was 2017’s Sonic Mania.