Gameloft bringing Sonic Unleashed to mobile
We’ve not heard from Sega for ages
A Sega insider said to me recently that they wonder what Sega Mobile actually does, and other than a brief foray into iPhone gaming we haven’t really had much in the way of pocket Sega lately. The cursory mention of Sonic The Hedgehog coming to iPhone has gone equally quiet.
It now seems Sega is indeed pulling back from the mobile market, and handing its license reigns over to Gameloft. The first evidence of this new partnership will be in the form of a mobile adaptation of Sonic Unleashed.
“We are confident this agreement will be the first step towards a long term partnership between Gameloft and Sega,” says Gameloft president Michel Guillemot. “Sega's great brands coupled with Gameloft's long standing history of excellence in mobile game development can only result in an extraordinary mobile experience for consumers.”
Sonic Unleashed was bloody awful on the consoles, with the introduction of the bizarre Werehog thing serving only to confuse Sonic fans. That said, there were brief moments of excellence when the game switched to a 3D, suped-up, side-on version of the original game - and this is likely to be the bit that makes it into a mobile game (fingers crossed).
“With so much entertainment on the go, it seems natural to provide fans with a mobile game based on the much loved Sonic brand,” says Sega Europe A&R director Gary Rowe.
“Gameloft's unwavering commitment to quality mobile games combined with a successful track record of bestsellers and unmatched worldwide distribution make them uniquely qualified to develop Sonic Unleashed for mobile.”
There are a lot of Sega titles out there that have never made it to mobile, so hopefully Gameloft’s involvement will being to change all that. Any Sega game requests, pocket gamers?
