There has been a lot of average Sonic games over the years. Sega knows this, and before the ‘hogs reputation is completely run into the ground they’ve decided to “de-list†a handful of Sonic games from stores. In other words, Sega aren’t going to be shipping any more new copies of older Sonic games to retailers.
SEGA’s SVP of EMEA Jurgen Post told MCV:
“Any Sonic game with an average Metacritic has been de-listed. We have to do this and increase the value of the brand. This will be very important when more big Sonic releases arrive in the future. We could make a lot of money on back-catalogue Sonic titles, but let’s keep the number of Sonic games available under control. Otherwise you can have cannibalisation. If there are ten Sonic games on the shelves, with people seeing Sonic Rush DS or Sonic Rush Adventure, this may not help our overall strategy.”
I’d say that Sonic Rush DS and Sonic Rush Adventure are strange examples to use – their Metacritic scores stand at 82% and 78% respectively. If anything, they’re two of the best Sonic games released in the last five years.