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Sonic and Full Auto at PS3 launch

Monkey Ball there for Wii.

Sonic the Hedgehog and Full Auto 2: Battlelines will be PlayStation 3 launch titles, according to SEGA of America's Scott Steinberg.

Steinberg, SoA's veepee of marketing, also revealed that Virtua Fighter 5 would ship in March 2007.

Speaking in an interview with US website GameDaily, he said SEGA's Wii titles would adopt a similar strategy. Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz will be there at launch, while Sonic Wild Fire (working title) is due next March.

There's also a suggestion that Full Auto 2's PS3 exclusivity will expire shortly after launch, which would make sense given that the first title appeared only on Xbox 360. When Steinberg had it put to him that way, he laughed.

Similarly, the Xbox 360 version of Sonic the Hedgehog will ship shortly after the PS3 version launches with the Sony console.

Asked about the relative costs of developing for next-gen consoles, Steinberg said the Wii was the most affordable, but added that you didn't have to spend oodles on the other formats. "Next-gen games don't automatically cost $20 million dollars," he pointed out - which is just as well.

Steinberg believes SEGA is in pole position as a Wii third party - and often refers to the console's "family" approach. While others struggle to grasp the new controls, he says, "SEGA is already thinking about its second generation software."

In terms of the first-gen next-gen software (argh), you can read our impressions of Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz and Sonic Wild Fire elsewhere on the site, along with thoughts on Sonic the Hedgehog PS3/360 and details on Full Auto 2: Battlelines. All were playable at E3.