SEGA and Jio to bring Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Streets of Rage 3 to Indian gamers

The Japanese gaming giant and Indian telecom operator have partnered to bring two of the publisher’s popular gaming titles to Indian gamers.

SEGA will bring its popular Sonic the Hedgehog game to India through telecom operator Jio.  (SEGA)

One sector that definitely saw an uptick around the world due to the novel coronavirus pandemic last year was gaming, and the Indian market was no exception, with a study showing that 45 percent of India's mobile users were introduced to gaming due to the pandemic. 

Japanese gaming giant SEGA Corporation and telecom operator Jio have announced that they have partnered to bring two of the publisher's popular gaming titles to Indian gamers - Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Streets of Rage 3. These games will be available to Jio users on their smartphones and other devices, along with their Jio Set-Top Box (STB) for Jio TV.

According to a Japanese press release, the game publisher will be in charge of localising the games for Indian users and updating them, while the telecom operator will distribute it in the country via its STB service. The release also states that this will be the first SEGA original title to be played in Hindi and Tamil.

A screengrab from Streets of Rage 3, which is also set to come to Indian gamers.  (SEGA)

A screengrab from Streets of Rage 3, which is also set to come to Indian gamers.  (SEGA)

One of SEGA's most popular games of all time, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was released in 1992 for the 16-bit Sega Genesis gaming console. The game follows the popular character Sonic, a blue hedgehog who rules and attempts to stop the evil Doctor Robotnik from stealing the Chaos Emeralds which he wants to use to power his Death Egg space station. The side-scrolling game was one of the most popular games of the 1990s – and was one of the reasons SEGA was able to catch up to Nintendo's success during that decade.

Meanwhile, Streets of Rage 3 is similar in design to Sonic as it is also a side-scroller game that was released two years after Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The popular game has been released for multiple consoles apart from the original SEGA Genesis, including the Nintendo GameCube, the PlayStation 2 and the Wii Virtual Console years later in 2007.