MARCH 5, 2008 • Sega Sammy Holdings reported that its Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games had sold more than 5 million units. Available on the Wii and DS platforms, the game pits Nintendo’s Mario against Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog in a series of Olympic events.
Impact: With the comeback of Nintendo the market is once again seeing evidence of how successful original cartoon characters can be in the game industry. Mario has been around for over 20 years and Sonic is approaching his 20th birthday. A large group of consumers for the original Sonic and Mario products are now just having kids of their own and looking to get back into the products they enjoyed from their youth. For several years, DFC Intelligence had highlighted this trend as a key reason that Nintendo was due for a comeback. That comeback has occurred for Nintendo and now a similar phenomenon could help companies like Sega in the future.
