Sonic Team boss says AAA studios can learn a lot from indies ~ Amazing News 2020

Sonic Team boss says AAA studios can learn a lot from indies

By Sickr on June 15, 2026

SEGA recently announced Sonic Pico Park which is a new independent take on the classic Sonic franchise and is being handled by Tecopark and inspired by their hit game, Pico Park. Speaking to Games Radar, Sonic Team boss Takashi Iizuka praised indies and said how difficult it is for AAA games with their big budgets to make the money back in a fiercely competitive industry, saying “It’s a huge investment of, you know, the staff and the resources that we have, and then once you’ve invested all that time and energy into something, you really need to sell a lot of units in order to survive in the industry.”

He said that independent developers can quickly execute an incredible idea and move on while larger publishers and developers such as SEGA have really lengthy development time meaning they need to make their cash back quickly once the project is wrapped up. He said SEGA could “learn from the indie development scene” and said it’s “really stimulating working with those indie developers, because you get to feel that that smaller team energy and that quickness of working to get an idea into an experience.”