Sega to release multiple remasters, remakes and spin-offs in the next 12 months

The company talked about its upcoming strategy in a fiscal year results presentation for the last year (published on May 13), which also looked forward to what Sega has planned over the next 12 months (via VGC).

In a segment about prolonging product life cycles, Sega said it has a series of “remake/remaster, spin-off [and] change of theme[s]” planned for its franchises. The company adds that last year these approaches netted it 4million unit sales, with it expecting 5million in the next fiscal year.

Sega also provides examples of the types of games it is talking about, referring to remaster Sonic Colours: Ultimate, remastered collection Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania and Yakuza spin-off Lost Judgment.

Whilst Sega doesn’t directly reference what this upcoming year’s games will be, it’s safe to assume that Sonic Origins – a collection of the original Sonic The Hedgehog games remastered for modern consoles – is part of this strategy.

Particular mention is also made of expanding Sonic’s brand awareness, which has happened over the last couple of years thanks to the films, the character’s 30th anniversary, and the upcoming Sonic Frontiers game.

Not all is going well for the hedgehog, however, as recently Sonic content creators have found YouTube marking their work as “made for kids”, which is greatly hindering the work’s reach, regardless of any themes or imagery inappropriate for children aged 13 or below.

“Your video is tossed into a pool of other Made for Kids labelled content that is of poor quality, so you’re made irrelevant,” explained channel Balena Productions’ Steven Page. “There are Made for Kids’ videos that contain gore and swearing. Adult animation has videos flagged as made for kids, so the tag isn’t even safe for children at all which makes this whole thing worthless.”

In other news, Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is coming to Nintendo Switch online later this month.