SEGA knows all about the complaints of Sonic's eye color

A portion of a SonicStadium interview with Sega Rep, Aaron Webber…

SS: Now, Sonic 4 has been a controversial game with many people loving it or loathing it on some forums. There does seem to have been some improvements on the physics I myself, have been enjoyed what I played so far and it is up for IGN’s nomination for best platformer at E3. Can you tell me what kind of improvements they’ll be making to this game?

Aaron: It’s actually much more than just physics. There’s a lot we haven’t announced yet or talked about as far as changes we are making to this game. We’ll be revealing some of those soon, but I just want to say that physics will be just a small piece of it. Now, with regard to your comment about the fans, I think there’s truth that no matter what kind of Sonic game we make, no matter what it entails, no matter what it’s expected to be, they’ll be people who love it and they’ll be people who hate it. No matter what kind of game you make, there will always be people in that spectrum and you have to accept and understand that.

We understand that no matter what we do, no matter what improvements we make they’ll still be people out there that are like “You know what? Those eyes are not black, ergo it’s not cool with me” The physics might be perfect. The game might be feeling like classic Sonic. But because the eyes are different, they might feel it’s different. We understand that people will always have difference of opinions, but when it comes down to it, they don’t say those things because they’re angry or negative people, but the reason they are so passionate is because they really love Sonic and the franchise and they love the memories and nostalgia they had growing up with the Genesis games. I think that’s the reason why they are so passionate whether they are for it or against it. So, regardless where they sit on that spectrum, if it’s because of that passion, then it’s very respectful.