The Stinger Reports’ JAEPO coverage included breaking news from Sega, which revealed a future project involving their most famous character, Sonic the Hedgehog, is in development and that the company is once again looking at developing a chain of theme parks.
Hajime Satomi, President and CEO of the Sega Sammy Holdings Inc., revealed in an interview with
The World Folio the company's signing an agreement for a hybrid of live-action and animation motion picture based on their 25th anniversary mascot Sonic the Hero:
“Sega Sammy Group is currently planning with Sony Pictures to create a live-action and animation hybrid “Sonic the Hedgehog” movie scheduled for release in 2018. Like with this CG animation production, we would like to expand our business into other entertainment areas beyond what we are currently involved.”
Satomi also revealed that in regards to the international or global growth of SEGA, the company was once again looking at developing a chain of indoor theme parks.
“We are strong in the smartphone and online gaming industry. Therefore, for our company to grow bigger, we must focus on expanding into markets other than smartphones and online gaming – such as indoor theme parks in Asia or animations. We have rights to animations such as Conan, Lupin the 3rd and Anpanman, which are all popular animations in Japan. Lupin the 3rd is very popular now in Italy and on television.”
Indoor entertainment properties is something Sega has dabbled in previously and has accomplished with varying degrees of success and failure, so it will be interesting to see what type of direction they take with any new locations they open.
The Stinger Report has also reported in their breaking news rumors that SEGA was also looking at the attraction market and was developing a secret virtual reality roller-coaster project based on “the company mascot" -”presumably Sonic.
More details to come as they become available.