SEGA Sound Team on the success Sonic films have had on game soundtrack listens

The incredible Sound Team at SEGA have participated in a new interview during which they were asked about the success of the Sonic the Hedgehog movies and whether they’ve seen a knock on effect for users searching for the soundtracks to the games. Here’s what they said via machine translation.

In recent years, the Sonic the Hedgehog film series has been a global hit. Have you noticed any changes in the listening audience for related music?

Tomoya Ohtani:
There have been three films so far, and I think Sonic × Shadow: Tokyo Mission in particular incorporated the most references and arrangements from game music in the series. It definitely had a significant impact on the streaming numbers of the original tracks as well.

Ryo Kinoshita:
The data clearly shows that songs used in the films have increased year-over-year. What’s interesting is that even songs not directly featured in the movie see growth. This time, since the story focused on the character Shadow the Hedgehog, tracks and soundtracks related to Shadow from past game titles saw a huge boost.

Go Iwasaki:
Since the films are family-oriented, many fans go to see them with their children. People who used to play the games years ago are now parents—they watch the movie with their kids, then rediscover and listen to the older music again. In that sense, the films have played a very important role as a touchpoint.

Kinoshita:
This time especially, we were able to align everything perfectly for the first time—like releasing game DLC (downloadable content) tied to the movie’s storyline and timing the release of streaming soundtracks to coincide with the film’s premiere. Not just new releases, but even the existing catalog benefited, and seeing that synergy clearly reflected in the numbers was a major achievement.

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