The Conduit sales fizzle in late-June debut

by Griffin McElroy on Jul 17th 2009 11:02AM

Once again, Sega places its hopes and dreams in the untapped hardcore Wii market, and once again it just doesn't pay off. With the June NPD sales figures comes a sad truth for those who've been hyping The Conduit since it first reared its head last April: according to those figures, the conspiracy-infused FPS sold under 72,000 copies between its June 23 launch and the NPD cutoff date of July 4, placing it at number 25 on the U.S. top sellers list.

Sure, The Conduit hasn't been out for a full month yet, but that sales total has got to be a disappointing figure for Sega, whose last two adult-themed Wii releases, MadWorld and House of the Dead: Overkill, made even smaller impacts during their respective launch months (we suppose there's a little silver lining in The Conduit performing slightly better). We've contacted both Sega and High Voltage to find out how they're feeling about the game's somewhat underwhelming sales figures.

Source

Tags: fps, high-voltage-software, Nintendo, npd, sales, sega, the-conduit, Wii

Reader Comments (251)

developing for the wii is like developing for that leapfrog system... unless it has spongebob in it, it will fail.

I'm getting a kick out of this cause I use to work for Leapfrog.

Hey Shag, as much as I would've liked to have found this in English, here it is (inexplicably) in German. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO0MPwD99DE

I think it has more to do that people owning the Wii, whether they are newcomers or traditional gamers, got the Wii because they really aren't into these kinds of games. Not everyone needs blood, death, swearing, and shooting in their games.

it has more to do with marketing, the wii demographic isnt expected to follow gaming news.

I think it has more to do with the fact that The Conduit was a bland, generic shooter.

That didn't help matters either.

Again, I don't know who does their advertising, but they need to be fired. I didn't see a single commercial for this. Also, way to declare it dead in the water after a week of sales...

Really? Because I saw commercials on about every break during Adult Swim for the past month or so.

I actually saw tons and tons of commercials for it, I was personally shocked at the advertising blitz. In light of that I'm surprised it's not selling better.

And to consolidate my comments, I have to point out to the very 1st poster, that it's a remarkably stupid and asinine comment, BUT HAHAHAHHAH a dumbass spongebob Nintendo slam, how quaint.

Yeah I used to see the commercial multiple times a day around release time. It came on one time I was with some friends (who don't follow games very closely), and it kind of went like this

Friend 1: "Woah wtf is this game, it looks like complete shit. Is this for xbox?"

Me: "No it's a wii game, coming out pretty soon"

Friend 1 plus the others "....Oh, that explains a lot"

Always with the bullshit tmac.. "I was with some friends" See that right there is what gave it away.

Great story tmac,

Were those friends actually the voices in your own head?

So, tmac, did you get a good result for that research on human behaviors when facing trolling or something like that?

Predictable responses from the people who have egg on their faces right now. The people who were touting this game as the be all end all of wii games, and hte one that was going to change the way core games are on the wii and sell a bajillion.

I'm surprised you folks have the nerve to even show up in this article.

Also I haven't said anything bad about the Wii since I told you guys about my paper. I've sad bad things about certain games, like this one and Wii Sports, but not about ninty and the wii itself. I even called Madworld a good game.

Like I said, bad games deserve to sell badly and this did. Justice is served.

"Derp de derp derp derp de derpderp."

AH HA HA HA HA HA!!!

Oh, it never gets old.

@ Sammy, I think I finally follow that. That's what the filter spits out instead of his actual comment, isn't it? I mean that's borderline what it is 100% of the time so I guess that's accurate.

I wish samfish would stop replying to me, cause I can't see what he says either, since I tested that thing too to see if it worked and I'm too lazy to change it back. I'm a strong believer in people being able to say what they want, even if it's from fucktards like Samfish or Sprinkles (although he entertains me admittedly)

I like to imagine weird slurping noises dotting everything tmac says. It makes it sound a lot more hilarious/realistic.

I agree tmac. That is why I still come here and read comments. I don't post that much anymore...for me posting here is like watching wrestling, it gets repetative and predictable after a while.

However like I said I agree with you that people should post what they want. After all, they are just words. This comment filter is just stupid. If I don't want to read a comment...I DON'T READ IT. A comment filter is just not needed when I can look elsewhere on the page.

Now on topic, I don't see why anyone is surprised by the small sales for this type of game on the wsm. The target demographic of the wsm is NOT these types of games. That is one of the many reasons why i have said over and over that the wsm is NOT COMPETING with the 360 and PS3.

Still 9 days is not enough to go on...lets see what happens next month.

Yes we Cannabis!!!!!

Killjebus—YES! That’s what I said in my post below (that was supposed to be a reply to this, but o well). This is a niche title on the Wii. People buy the Wii to play other types of games—old school games, multiplayer party type games, Nintendo games, and fitness games. They don’t buy a Wii because they are looking to play an FPS.

Of the people who buy a wii, there is a small section that want to play FPS games. Of that section, there is a small section that wants to play FPS games but do not own a 360 or PS3.

I still think games work better on the Wii when they are not trying to emulate the 360/PS3 games. A shooter could work well, but I think it will need a different graphical style (like no more heroes or katamari or viewtiful joe) to make it obvious that it’s something not being done on the other consoles.

"A shooter could work well, but I think it will need a different graphical style (like no more heroes or katamari or viewtiful joe) to make it obvious that it’s something not being done on the other consoles"

Yes, a quirky cartoony based shooter might sell. It would need looney tunes style over the top violence without blood or dismemberment and it would have to be easy to play AND packed with mini-games.

Developers need to stop making a game on the wsm to look like a 360 or PS3 game. The wsm just does not have the power to do that.

i never really understood the comment kill filter. the only trolls who really deserve it are cody and sprinkles, and sprinkles' comments (used to) make me laugh. all the other trolls who are worth kill filtering are usually just one-timers or ones that only troll half the time. is it really that hard just scrolling down a bit?

but still, it is an ingenious script.

"sprinkles, and sprinkles' comments (used to) make me laugh."

What happened to sprinkles? Please tell me he was NOT banned.

I have never understood why so many get so offended by WORDS. To me, there are much more important things to worry about than WORDS on a videogame blog.

If you don't like a comment...just move you eyes and SCROLL DOWN.

someone needs to give tmacairjordan a TV contract, cos his posts are comedy gold.

every time i read his posts, i hear Yakety Sax in my head and everything.

killjebus, he got IP banned, so he can't come back. and yeah, what you said is basically what i said. it's not that hard to just scroll down.

killjebus, you have to remember though that Sprinkles had a knack for saying things about people that were way out of line. It wasn't just that he trolled and made the same unqualified statements over and over that got him booted again.

"If you don't like a comment...just move you eyes and SCROLL DOWN."

Well, you know what they say about train wrecks..!

You know, I have the sneaking feeling that a lot of people just pirated the thing. It seems to be a thing with the Wii and DS.

Unfortunately, most of the "core" fan base knows how to do that. Shame...

+1 giant sized point for having some common sense (and no I'm not trying to offend you)! the Wii has become another PSP in terms of homebrew and pirating. people look at an AWESOME Wii game and say "well that looks GREAT! BUT even though it seems worth the purchase i think I'll just pirate it since it's so easy to do so. that and also because I'm to stingy to purchase any games on the Wii be it a good or shitty game". personally it pisses me off because it's true that people will ALWAYS pirate and it'll never stop. nooo but tell someone who pirates that you want to take their wallets and spend their money just because you feel like doing so and what do they say? "anyone who touches my wallet will get an ass beating! you have no right to steal from me! thats illegal". bunch of hypocrites.

Part of the problem is that a decent portion of the wii's hardcore market probably have soft-modded systems.

Yeah they say core games dont sell well on the Wii because only soccer moms and grandparents have them, when in actuality, what you stated is probably more accurate.

Soft mod = piracy?

Get out of here with that whackness.

I actually find that really unlikely. I don't think the large majority of what you would call 'core gamers', as stupid a term as I find that to be, ever mod their systems. It's really a small minority of gamers that mod systems in order to pirate something like this. Don't scapegoat the poor sales by saying that 'DURR pirates stoled it'

It's just as easy to mod a 360, yet their "core" games still sell fine.

Piracy is a poor excuse. So is a lack of advertising. The fact of the matter is that the game sold poorly because this genre doesn't fit well with the Wii's consumer base. Gamers know where the good FPS's are, and they know where they aren't. It's hard to imagine that someone who enjoys FPS's would chose a Wii over a 360. In fact, i bet a lot of them have both, and i doubt those who do own both would bother with a game that looks like a Quake 2 mod. Just because a system has a high install base doesn't mean the publishers are going to bank on any game they make.

yep, because EVERYONE with a softmodded wii, or a DS with a flash card is a pirate

If you mod a 360 though you get booted off of Live, if not worse (especially if it's true that MS can remotely destroy people's systems!).
PS3 is too large to effectively pirate games on.

That said, I don't really buy the excuse that Wii games are being pirated en masse.

has the PS3 even been truly hacked yet? i've seen the videos of putting backups of discs onto the hard drive, but you still needed the disc in the drive if i remember correctly. i guess blu-ray plays a major part in that though, it's not like everyone has a blu-ray burner.

Easy, I used the phrases "part of the problem" and "a decent portion" for a reason.

Also, I believe I can say that it is easier to mod a wii than an Xbox360, unless you don't have to take the 360 apart anymore. A wii can be soft-modded to play copies of games from a disc or from an external hard drive in 30 minutes or less.

"It's just as easy to mod a 360,"

Modding the 360 isn't nearly as easy as sticking a save file on an SD card and playing Twilight Princess.

@Vcize
"It's just as easy to mod a 360, yet their "core" games still sell fine."

Uh, sorry, but that's bullshit. The Wii is much, much easier to softmod than the 360. Hell, in terms of ease, the Wii is even easier to softmod than the PSP. The only other systems I'm aware of that beats the Wii in ease is the DS (just buy a flash cart) and the DreamCast (it played burned games out of the box).

This is why the Wii has such a better homebrew community than the 360. Historically, systems that are very easy to softmod has a large development community (e.g. PSP, DC, DS all have huge development communities).

The Wii is a superb system for FPS, since the wiimote just makes sense for that use case. The Conduit was just not a good game...

The only reason I haven't bought it yet is because I really don't play video games in the summertime. I'm definitely planning on picking it up in the fall (like a lot of other people I know to). You really can't judge a game's success based on the sales it achieved in less than it's first month of being on the market. In the long run, I bet this hits the 250,000 mark.

That would be an achievement...back in 1995.

You're an idiot.

He is kinda right about the whole summer thing though. There is a portion of the populus that actually enjoys being outside and not copy paper white all year long.

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The Conduit sales fizzle in late-June debut

Reader Comments (251)

Posted: Jul 17th 2009 10:58AM Swizzler said

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