When Sega first announced that 2D series revamp Sonic 4 would be released as a series of short, downloadable episodes, the company was careful not to say just how many episodes it planned to release. Right now, it looks like that number is going to be two, as Sonic Team producer Takashi Izuka recently told Digital Spy the team is "currently not planning to release another episode," after the second.

Sonic 4's first episode got mixed reviews (including a glowing write up from Ars) and equally mixed sales across a number of downloadable game platforms. The game premiered as the top downloadable title on the PlayStation Network after its October 2010 launch, and peaked at No. 3 on iTunes' top-grossing games charts, but the Xbox 360 version sold considerably less than contemporary releases like Super Meat Boy, according to online leaderboard data. It's probably safe to assume the WiiWare version of the game didn't sell so well either—while Episode 2 is coming back to Xbox Live Arcade, PSN, PC, iOS, Android, and Windows Phone later this year, Sega announced in December that there wouldn't be a Wii version of the title's second episode.

This might seem like a bad sign for Sega's once-venerable Sonic brand, but it might just represent a shift toward the more robust Sonic Generations series, which rode its mix of 2D and 3D gameplay to over 1.6 million sales since its November release, according to Sega.