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Sonic's still a big winner on mobile
Built-for-mobile games Sonic Jump and Sonic Dash are spiking big download numbers, and UK Sega dev Hardlight Studios believes they can still rise significantly. Chief Technical Officer Chris Southall told Joystiq vertical platormer Jump is up to 8 million downloads, while endless runner Dash is at a whopping 20 million. Furthermore, each day sees 1 million active Dash-ers, as well as 100,000 new users jog onto the game, some several months after it was released. Jump, released last October, is a paid download, while Dash is free-to-play after initially requiring a purchase when it raced out in March of this year. Southall said Dash offered a more "natural" fit for the speedy IP than Jump, and he feels there's plenty of scope for growth with the 3D runner, including bringing it to Japan where it remains unreleased. "You can just see that Sonic is such a big IP; we haven't actually done any advertising or user acquisition yet on Sonic Dash," Southall told us. "We're doing updates through the year, we're going to to keep doing that, and using the learning we've gained as a studio. And [we're going to] start to actually advertise the game and push it more. So hopefully where we are now with Sonic Dash is kind of the beginning rather than the end." Hardlight recently internally signed off on its next mobile game, Southall told us, before adding that this one won't be a Sonic adventure, but something for another "big Sega IP." He wouldn't be budged on anything more specific than an ETA for open beta, which is early 2014, and the possible option to play it in landscape mode as well as in portrait. "With the next game we want to facilitate a little bit more ability to move it to other platforms, so one of the things that we're looking at right now is allowing the player to play in landscape mode as well as portrait mode," Southall noted. "As well as the some obvious choices with consoles, there are also some of the newer Android-based consoles, and maybe stuff that Apple's doing would be more amenable to controllers and landscape mode rather than portrait mode, maybe bigger displays. So we're definitely thinking about all that stuff."
Sonic Jump trailer may help in your boing decision
Sonic Jump is out today, and along with the iOS release comes a trailer that provides plenty of gameplay footage. Now, if you decide to buy it, you'll know exactly what you're jumping into.
Daily iPhone App: Sonic Jump is Sega's first mobile-only iOS title
Sega has released quite a few iOS games so far. Just search the App Store for "Sega" to bring up lots and lots of various Sega-made titles. Many of those games are published by Sega and developed by other companies. The games that Sega has made are essentially all ports, or games that appeared on other systems first. That makes Sonic Jump, available today on iOS for the first time, Sega's first original mobile-only title. It's the first game Sega has developed specifically for Apple's platform. Now, "original" may be a little bit of a stretch, as we say in the video preview below, because Sonic Jump is essentially Doodle Jump, only dressed up with Sonic graphics and sounds. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as it is always fun to run the little blue hedgehog around (even if, in this game, he doesn't really do very much running at all). But it does mean that Sega didn't go too far off the beaten path on this one. If you've played Doodle Jump, you know how Sonic Jump works. The one exception is that Sonic Jump does have an interesting "stage" structure, which provides quite a few different levels to play through and then get rated on, with higher difficulties to chase all the time. That's a nice bit of innovation, but it doesn't really change the gameplay. Sonic Jump's tilt-to-move and jump mechanism is a well-traveled cliche on the App Store by now. All that said, Sonic fans will like this one, and the game is fun and well-made. It's probably not quite worth the full US$1.99 purchase price, especially since the game has a lot of freemium features already cooked in. But my guess is that Sega will drop the price on this very soon, so if you'd rather not spend the couple of bucks, watch for a price drop, and pick up Sonic Jump when it's a bit cheaper.
Sonic Jump vaults to iOS on October 18
Sega's mysterious iOS game Sonic Jump just got a bit less mysterious – at least, when it comes to pricing and launch date. Sonic Jump will be available worldwide for iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad on Thursday, October 18, the Sega Twitter account has announced.Sonic Jump will cost $1.99 and looks like a Doodle Jump clone, though Sega has yet to show us any gameplay. Sega released a mobile Sonic Jump game in 2006, predating Doodle Jump, but we're certain that later game has influenced this new one.
Mysterious 'Sonic Jump' coming to mobile devices
There is a game called Sonic Jump, and it will be released on mobile platforms soon. That's pretty much all the info Sega released about this new project today, along with this image, illustrating what it looks like when Sonic jumps.We'll have more detail when there is any.Update: As it happens, Sonic Jump was the name of a game developed by Sega Mobile for the T-Mobile Sidekick, way back in 2007. Players guided an automatically jumping Sonic through vertical stages in an attempt to nab a Chaos Emerald before Dr. Eggman had the opportunity. Here's hoping this new Sonic Jump is the rebirth of the franchise, rather than a port of the original.[Thanks, Joshua!]
