In 2009, Sega launched a trio (MadWorld, The Conduit and House of the Dead: Overkill) of mature titles exclusively on for the Nintendo Wii. Now it seems unlikely the publisher will bring any similar titles to the platform. During a recent interview on the 4 Guys 1UP Podcast, Sega of America studio director Constantine Hantzopoulos indicated that Sega would not be producing anymore mature titles for the Big N.
“That begs the question, are we going to do more titles for the Wii … probably not,” Hantzopoulos said. “Look at Dead Space. We were stunned. That was my litmus test. Basically, it’s like, okay, you got EA, who can put all the marketing muscle behind this, an established franchise that scored well on 360 and PS3. They should be able to actually hit this out of the park right? We get numbers, real numbers aside from NPD, and I’m like, ‘Woah’.”
Has anyone else played the titles mentioned? Was quality responsible for their low sales figures? Something else?
I really enjoyed Dead Space Extraction and HOTD: Overkill on my Wii, but both are essentially light gun games, and I think it’s hard to quantify the value for money you are getting with them…it’s the kind of game you might pull out if you have a few mates round, but it’s not worth the full RRP in my view.
I felt Dead Space Extraction was far superior to HOTD Overkill in every way, although Overkill was more humorous, it was a puerile humour which wore very thin, very quickly.
I havent played any off those game, but I do have a theory on it.
The Wii is most played by the family, if it is played even at all. Games like Madworld, DSE, HOTD and the Conduit are aimed at the real gamer. Not the housewives and childeren that own the Wii for the most part, or play on it for the most part.
Companies see the selling rates of the Wii and think ha we gonna get money out of that, but they tend to forget that the huge majority that own the Wii dont play the games like i mentioned before. Real gamers will buy the Madworld, DSE etc. but that will be only such a small percentage that it wont really make any difference for the developers. Do we guys even see a mother play DSE or Madworld in front of the childeren? i think not.
Most gamers that own a Wii also own a second console, and they have their portion of Dead Space on either the 360 or the PS3, and they will probably buy the “grown-up” version.