Sega exec boldly says he wants Sonic to “surpass Mario”

Sonic and Mario’s rivalry is possibly destined to never end, as one Sega executive has said he wants the blue blur to “surpass Mario.”

The battle between Mario and Sonic is a tale as old as time, going back all the way to the days when Sega still made consoles. Of course, as beloved as both characters are, the moustachioed plumber is obviously the more popular of the two. There’s no question about that, from sales of games, to box office successes. But Sega exec Osamu Ohashi still has bold ambitions for the fastest hedgehog around, and in a recent interview with Sega itself, he said, “Quite simply, I want to surpass Mario,” (translations via Knoebelbroet).

“Sonic was originally developed to compete with Mario, and it hasn’t succeeded to this day. Because we respect Mario, our goal is to catch up and surpass him. We want Sonic to be played all over the world, including Japan, just like Mario, and we want the movie to be a bigger hit than Mario, and we want [Universal Studios Japan] to build a Sonic area. That’s our goal as Sonic lovers.”

At the very least, the ambition seems to be coming from a place of loving both Sonic and Mario, though at this point in time, Sonic has a long way to go to catch up to the high heights of Super Mario himself. After all, Sonic’s games are pretty infamously mixed, whereas most Nintendo-produced Mario games have been met with near universal critical acclaim. That might be a good thing for Sega to focus on.

Earlier this week, Sega revealed a brand new Sonic game, Sonic Dream Team, which is planned to release exclusively on Apple Aracde.

Sega clearly does have some big plans in the works at the moment. In a recent business report it noted it plans to release a “super game” by March 2026, and it wants to become a “Global Leading Contents Provider,” whatever either of those things mean. There’s no confirmation on what the game could be, or even really like, but hey, someone’s gotta make a super game. I guess.