Tokyo Metro and SEGA are celebrating Sonic’s 35th anniversary with a wrapped Tozai Line train, a four-stop digital stamp rally, limited 24-hour tickets and a special Subway Museum campaign beginning in October.
Takashi Iizuka says Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds was planned around keeping players active for the long term, but the need to fund frequent new content ultimately left the team relying on the Season Pass for additional development money.
Takashi Iizuka says modern Sonic projects can take three to five years to develop, forcing SEGA to maintain multiple development lines at once if it wants to continue releasing new Sonic games regularly.
SEGA president Shuji Utsumi says Sonic is particularly popular among American and European tourists visiting Tokyo, while customer data is helping SEGA tailor permanent stores to different regional audiences.
