Sega Announces New Legacy Series

The original Sonic the Hedgehog is nearly ubiquitous in the modern gaming landscape; you can play it on just about every console released in the last decade. Today, Sega announced their plans to take that accessibility a step further by bringing the game to much older consoles as part of its new Legacy series. In a recent press release, the company revealed its intention to develop ports of the classic side-scrolling platformer for several less-than-successful consoles released in the early and mid-1990s.  Sega of America president John Cheng expressed optimism for the ports in the press release, saying:

We believe the future of Sonic the Hedgehog lies in the past. There are thousands of gamers out there that still play these old consoles regularly, and we want to make sure that they have the opportunity to experience this classic game on those machines without compromise.

Sega’s plans show that the target platforms for the Legacy program currently include the Atari Jaguar, the TurboGrafx-16, and the Philips CD-i, although leaked documents suggest that the Amiga CD32 and the Apple Pippin may soon join that list. When prompted about the difficulties in porting the game to so many pieces of incompatible hardware, Cheng was open and honest. “It’s been an enormous challenge,” he said at a recent Q&A session in New York City. “Our teams have been working hard for years to make this feat possible; in some cases, they’ve had to rewrite everything from scratch.” Reports from several outlets claim that Sega’s prioritization of the Legacy project has led to their pulling studios like The Creative Assembly and Relic Entertainment off of their current projects to work on these ports.

While no additional Legacy titles have been announced, Cheng confirmed that more are on the horizon. “Of course we plan to expand the library of Legacy games in the future,” he said. “Our teams are working around the clock to deliver fantastic experiences to those gamers who can’t let their old consoles go.” Recent rumors suggest that popular titles such as Vectorman and Ecco the Dolphin will see a Legacy release alongside more obscure games such as Columns III and Pulseman; Pulseman is said to be a CD-i exclusive, and if these rumors are accurate, it will mark the first time the game sees an official release on physical media outside of Japan.

The Jaguar and TurboGrafx-16 versions of Sonic the Hedgehog will be available at Funcoland
and Play N Trade stores across the United States on June 12th; the CD-i release will arrive in
early July. No international release dates have been announced.