Is Sonic more popular than Mario?

In the world of gaming, no one can argue that both Sonic and Mario are well known characters. During the first year of the short-lived “Walk of Game”, they were inducted at the same time alongside Link and the Halo series. While Mario has sold over 222 million copies amongst it’s never-ending list of game titles, Sonic has sold only 70 million. While at first glance that may seem like a major difference in game sales, delving deeper into the history of Sonic and Mario will allow gamers to see just how impressive that number really is.

Back in 1981, the first Mario game to be released (known as Jumpman originally) was Donkey Kong. Since the game was successful, Shigeru Miyamoto decided Mario should be a flexible character that can be in many types of games. Over the years, Nintendo released multiple successful systems starting with the Famicon which later was known as the Nintendo Entertainment system (NES). Although it had a bumpy start thanks to the 1983 video game crash, Nintendo added it’s official “Seal of Approval” to games to guarantee their quality. With Super Mario Bro’s doing well on the NES, the success of Mario has continued throughout many game and system generations to this day. Over 200 different Mario games have currently been created.

Sonic, on the other hand, didn’t appear in a game until 1991; around 10 years after the first Mario game was created. Sega created this character as a counter to Nintendo’s already popular Mario in hopes of emulating his success. With it’s fast paced gameplay differing from many past games, Sonic quickly earned a large following. Unfortunately for Sega, they had a variety of console failures which led to loss of customer faith. While the character Sonic was still popular, less people buying their systems meant less people had the opportunity to buy their games. With financial issues and too much competition from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, Sega officially switched over to third-party game publishing in 2001. This change meant Sonic could start appearing on more gaming platforms.

Since then, many new Sonic games have been created, but most did not have the classic 2D gameplay that many fans love. In total, around 50 different Sonic games have been created (not including mobile phone games). Even though a large number of Sonic based games have received lukewarm reviews, his popularity has contained to prevail. At the 2008 London Games Festival, Sonic was voted most popular character with 24% of the votes while Mario received only 21%. Based on previously mentioned game statistics, on average Sonic games have sold 1.4 million copies per game based on 50 different games being created. On the other hand, Mario’s average per game is only 1.11 million. There’s a number of unknown variables that might have an impact on those numbers, however, it’s safe to say that some Sonic games can sell as well as some Mario games.

In conclusion, it can easily be said that Sonic is just as iconic as Mario for many people in the world. What’s impressive is how his popularity is still very high even after Sega’s past console issues, Sonics much later creation, and the lack of high rated Sonic games in the past nine years or so. If Sega didn’t have such a bumpy lifespan with Sonic, their famous blue hedgehog may currently be the much more popular character. Based on the evidence, if Sega is able to successfully release a new console (which would be a very difficult task) or their upcoming Sonic Colors satisfies fans and reviewers alike, expect to see Sonic to gain a larger following. Someday Sonic may be able to overshadow Mario, but for now, the rivalry will continue to keep both characters close in popularity.

The slideshow below shows how much Sonic has changed over the years. It begins with the original Sonic the Hedgehog for Genesis and ends with the soon to be released Sonic Colors.

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