#because iizuka seems to understand his property and these characters very well and never says anything contradicting of the text

[randomthefox]

Apparently, at an official event, Iizuka said that Eggman is younger than Maria and is in his late 40s.

If you look up "eggman age" on Twitter, you'll probably find it.

So assuming this Google translation is accurate enough to go off of and assuming this is an accurate recounting of what Iizuka said, which considering he probably answered the question himself in his native language I am willing to think that it is:

The question was "is Maria older than Eggman and did Eggman know Maria." Iizuka said that Maria would be older than Eggman if she were still alive and that they had never met.

This is pretty much exactly what I had also thought lol. Nothing about this answer asserts that Eggman was not yet born when Maria died, only that he was younger than her. He also says that Eggman is "probably" in his 50s or younger, putting the age range anywhere from maybe 46 to 55+. The number 50 is even explicately used in the Japanese text of the answer, so I don't know where anyone's getting "late 40s" from. My conclusion had been that Eggman and Maria were both alive at the same time, whether Eggman was anything from a newborn to being maybe around ten years old when Maria died is the part that is open to interpretation. Iizuka's answer supports this conclusion.

Also notable details that Eggmans and Gerald never knew each other which we obviously could figure from the way Eggman talks about him in SA2, and again the idea that they were both alive at the same time doesn't mean they'd have ever met personally. And Eggman mentions in Sonic Frontiers Egg Memo that he never knew Maria and that everyone talked about her like she was very special. He also calls her his cousin so like, obviously there were multiple kids coming from Gerald involved. (I'm reminded sadly of that person who thought that Maria was Gerald's daughter instead of his granddaughter and I am weeping).

Anyway yeah. I assume people are already playing internet telephone with this and spreading a bad faith inaccurate recounting of what was said considering you presented this ask with "Iizuka said Eggman is in his 40s" which is very explicately NOT what he said. But the answer Iizuka gives here pretty much lines up with my own interpretation of Eggmans age.

If you assume that based on SA2 the ARK raid takes place "50 years ago" and that no time has passed since then, then Eggman is probably in his mid 50s. If you assume time has passed since the events of SA2, which they definitely have, then he's probably much older.