Yuji Naka, Takashi Iizuka discuss Sonic jumping to Nintendo platforms

Following the end of SEGA’s hardware business, longtime SEGA fans were forced to play their favorite characters on rival consoles. It may seem normal today, but it was definitely odd to see Sonic the Hedgehog on a Nintendo console.

Sonic creator Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka discussed Sonic’s jump to other consoles and gave some interesting responses.

Naka was initially saddened by the death of SEGA’s hardware business, but saw the benefit of Sonic appearing on other consoles.

“It’s very sad that Sega’s hardware business was canceled, but this allowed Sonic to run over a variety of different platforms. This made it so more people were able to play and enjoy Sonic games than ever.”

Iizuka gave a similar response.

“From my perspective, yeah, the companies may have been at war from a promotional standpoint – there was a lot of rivalry being created. As hardware manufacturers, you’re always out there competing against everyone else in the marketplace, but for me, I was just out there to make the greatest games possible, and bring them to as many people as possible.”

“I started this conversation with Nintendo, and then later when Sega picked up the license for the Olympic Games video games, we had that foundation with Nintendo to say ‘We want to bring Sonic and Mario together and have them appear in the same world and have them compete against each other, and we’re going to use the premise of it being the Olympic Games and these characters are participating in the Olympic Games together to make that happen.’ It was the first great conversation about getting these characters together to compete and have fun together.”

via Game Informer