Ten-Song said:
It always confuses me as a human being how Sega could want to intentionally pander to these weird fuckers. Like, I can't possibly imagine a marketing dude coming in with a picture of an emo robot attempting to initiate anal sex with a slutty rodent and scream to the rest of the marketing team "You see this? THIS is our bread and butter right here! We need to get us some of this!"
Yep.
At some point, Sega forgot that the original Sonic game for the megadrive became successful because it tried to appeal to everybody. There were no Sonic fans before 'Sonic 1', so they had to start somewhere.
However, after a while it seems as though Sega has narrowed their focus to try to appeal almost exclusively to the smaller, more hardcore segment of their audience.
That's where the Mario and Sonic series of games seem to differ the most. It would be so easy for Nintendo to fall into the same bottomless pits with mario as Sega has with sonic. But they understand the need to focus and keep the attention of the gamer on what's really important. They realize that if they filled their games up with superfluous crap, it would alienate a good portion of the larger, less-hardcore part of their overall audience.
It's great to throw some fan service towards your fans every once in a while. Why, just look at the Koopalings returning in NSMBWii. They returned because fans asked for them to come back. And that's great, but they don't detract at all from the game. But with Sega, it seems as though the fan service is the primary reason for their games to exist at all.
I don't think Sega understands this philosophy and is primarily why the series is in the situation it is in today.
