Friday morning's Nintendo Direct was focused on updating fans about new Wii U and 3DS games that will be released this year. Release dates were finally announced for Pikmin 3 and The Wonderful 101, but the biggest news coming out of the event was that a new Sonic the Hedgehog game was announced.
It's going to be a Nintendo Wii U exclusive.
Well, not entirely. The new Sonic title will also be arriving on the 3DS in some form.
The game, dubbed Sonic: The Lost World, wasn't announced with a release date attached, but it will likely arrive sometime this year. There was virtually nothing else revealed about the new project outside of the screenshot you see, but forget that for a minute. Sonic the Hedgehog is basically an exclusive Nintendo property for at least the next few entries in the series. If my 10-year-old self could fast-forward to today he'd probably spontaneously combust from amazement.
"The onetime rivalry between Mario and Sonic has grown into a friendship that has never been closer," Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime, said, according to Polygon. "These announcements in conjunction with SEGA demonstrate the commitment we have to bringing great games to the Wii U platform, and set the stage for our upcoming announcements at E3."
It's not just about Sonic: The Lost World, though. After all, Sonic games have appeared as exclusives before. Sonic Colors was on the Nintendo Wii and DS, while Nintendo's systems missed out on the PS3/Xbox 360-only Sonic the Hedgehog.
But with Sonic: The Lost World and the newly-announced Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, Nintendo and Sega revealed they've entered a three-game partnership (with the third project yet to be revealed) that positions Nintendo as the publisher of Sonic games, which is pretty wild.
It was surreal enough when I saw the Sega logo pop onto the screen when I put a Sonic game into the GameCube, and now it's taken to another level with Nintendo publishing an honest-to-goodness, brand new game in the series.
Will this be enough to boost the Nintendo Wii U, though? As surreal as this kind of announcement may be for players like me, probably not. The Sonic franchise simply doesn't hold as much power as it did back in the Sega Genesis / Super Nintendo days. While it'll likely perform well for the console, Sonic just isn't the system-seller he used to be.
Of course, Nintendo likely realizes this, which is why they finally revealed release dates for some other Wii U games. Pikmin 3 will arrive in the United States on August 4, while The Wonderful 101 lands on September 15. Additionally, the New Super Luigi U DLC for New Super Mario U will be released on the eShop on June 20, with a physical copy arriving in stores on July 26.
