For those that doubted the power mobile platforms can have, Hardlight Studios has a bone to pick with you. Speaking with Joystiq, Chief Technical Officer Chris Southall is proud at the pace both Sonic Jump and Sonic Dash are downloaded and played daily.
According to Southall, Jump, which is a paid download, is currently at 8 million downloads while the speedy Dash, a free-to-play title, is currently zooming at 20 million downloads, with 1 million “Dash-ers” actively playing the game daily and an additional average of over 100,000 users adding the game to their devices for the first time.
“You can just see that Sonic is such a big IP; we haven’t actually done any advertising or user acquisition yet on Sonic Dash,” Southall said. “We’re doing updates through the year, we’re going to to keep doing that, and using the learning we’ve gained as a studio. And [we’re going to] start to actually advertise the game and push it more. So hopefully where we are now with Sonic Dash is kind of the beginning rather than the end.”
He finally teases that Hardlight Studios has already signed off on its next game, which will be using “a big SEGA IP” that isn’t Sonic. An open beta for the game is currently slated for early 2014.
Now more than ever will I repeat this: “Chao Game, F2P, mobile platforms. You’re welcome, Sega.”
