Sega 'probably not' making more hardcore Wii games

by Justin McElroy on Jan 4th 2010 9:40AM

Sega gave it the old college try in 2009, reaching out to "mature" gamers with the likes of MadWorld, The Conduit and House of the Dead: Overkill. But after none of those made much of an NPDent, it would seem the publisher may be abandoning the practice. While speaking on the performance of those games during the 4 Guys 1UP podcast, Sega of America studio director Constantine Hantzopoulos said, "That begets the question, you know, are we gonna do more mature titles for the Wii and it's like ... probably not."

Hantzopoulos then pointed to the poor performance of Dead Space: Extraction on the Wii, saying he had been using it as a litmus test for the potential of mature titles on the platform. In other news, Sega has apparently decided on "be a little more arrogant" as its New Year's resolution.

Source

Tags: hardcore, house-of-the-dead-overkill, madworld, mature, Nintendo, sales, sega, the-conduit, Wii

Reader Comments (108)

Most depressing video game news in a while seeing as MadWorld and House Of The Dead rocked. The Conduit, well,

not so much, but still.

Dead Space was pretty awesome too, won the hearts of a lot of people.

Shame to see them giving up, though I hardly blame them, it is a business after all..

Last I heard Madworld sold 0.39 million, and House of the Dead sold over half a million, which is respectable, and makes it pretty retarded that they're basing their "litmus test" on the 0.18 million of Dead Space, which completely changed the genre of an existing franchise anyway, probably alienating the existing fanbase.

I have to disagree with you on Mad World. That game was WAY too niche anyways IMO. The black and white presentation got old real quick for me, as did the gameplay, which btw apparently allows for any random shake of the Wiimote in any direction on 90% of all gesture-based control prompts. The 800 F-bombs per level gets a little old too.

The Conduit was like a flash back to Perfect Dark though. I thought it was serviceable. The single player was fun, even if the multiplayer doesn't hold a candlestick-in-the-wind's chance against MW:Reflex's.

Good points, bm.

I actually feel that House of the Dead Overkill was the most dissapointing. I never played The Conduit, but I probably would've enjoyed it more than Overkill. Madworld I did enjoy, even with some of the control issues it had. It was still a good game that I recognized from the creative developers of Viewtiful Joe, God Hand and Okami. House of the Dead Overkill just seemed to lack actual quality. I played through it and beat it, but when trying to replay it, it really seemed like a pisspoor title.

So much can kill you.. ei?

I was disappointed by MadWorld, especially considering it was made by the God Hand developers. Style was the main thing it had going for it. One thing that pissed me off, though, is the way reviewers seemed to think it was aimed at kids/teens who think it's cool to play "mature" games - a lot of people seem to think this about Bayonetta as well.

It's because little kids don't know how to pirate games...I wonder if the exploit was never found if the sales would be any different. Maybe mature games just don't sell on wii...

I don't understand your logic. If a group of people DON'T know how to pirate games, how would the sales be any less? I'm fairly certain pirated copies of games don't show up on sales reports.

No, I think he's meaning their kiddie efforts aren't pirated very often, because that audience doesn't know how, while their more 'hardcore' efforts ARE pirated, because THAT audience knows all too well.

I think you've got it reversed. I pirated like a mofo when I was a kid. I grew out of it 15 years ago.

Not to mention I have more disposable income now, and less free time, so there is no need to pirate to acquire games I want to play.

Copa, I'm assuming you mean PC. Gamers on the PC have a lot more technical know-how than kiddie gamers on the Wii.

Not necessarily. It's hard to draw a straight line from piracy to sales, or to say if pirated copies aren't obtained by people who bought the game (i know a fair few who buy it legit, but pirate it so they can play it off HDD)

Still, if even 10% of those pirated statistics were sales, Nintendo and Sega would have been glad to see them.

Bradwart, I was actually thinking of the PS1, which was the last platform that I pirated games on.

I can't really speak to the Wii, but I know some of my kid's friends walk around with pirated games on the DS.

Anyway, if the OP was claiming that kids pirate less than the target audience for M-rated titles, I disagree.

I almost thought PS1, but figured the timeline was a bit off. Hard to believe that system is 15 years old.

Wii owners...this is your fault. You could have at least gotten them on sale or something!

Poor Sega!

Nine years ago it was "Poor SEGA," now I don't even recognize SEGA when I pass it on the street. We used to be homies too. Not saying we haven't had a few intimate moments in the last few years though (Panzer Dragoon Orta, JetSetRadio Future, and yes... Billy Hatcher).

Poor SEGA fans... !

Yes because we should all buy games we don't like to support companies who don't make products we want. Gaming is a charity after all.

I did buy the conduit and madworld and regret both purchases.

Hey I bought Madworld for $10 from Gamefly....which is used games, so I guess I didn't help after all.

Oh well, them not making anymore hardcore games for the Wii doesn't affect me at all. I didn't buy a Wii for Sega games.

Sure thing, you can blame me.
I bought Madworld, but nothing else.
Because even though the Wii Sonic games were at least so-so, I don't play Sonic games often.
Because even though the Conduit was pretty good despite what critics said, I wasn't going to purchase two copies just to play with my gf when it was $40-$50 each.
Because I didn't have enough money to purchase HotD:Overkill at the time, and by the time I did, major releases came out on every console.
And all the rest didn't really appeal to me.

I'll take the blame if you want, but then again they said they based it off the "Dead Space: Extraction litmus test".
Heck you can blame me for that too, I still haven't bought the game yet. I will, but my pockets are dry from buying people Christmas presents.

But in all honesty: It's SEGA's choice in the end. Whether or not their products sold well, if their casual games sell more - they'd choose that and burn all their "hardcore" games.

The audience existed for those games, but they decided to download them rather than buy them. HOTD: Overkill was downloaded 860,000 times, but I think actual sales in the US were less than 50,000.

Well anyway, I still think they can try to sell some more 'mature' games on Wii but they need to be good, and not just "this is pretty good for a rail shooter".

Whoops, forgot the source for the HOTD downloads: http://torrentfreak.com/the-most-pirated-games-of-2009-091227/

Oh, you're kidding me. The irony in that is terrible...Piracy killed the Dreamcast, and now it's killing their third party efforts.

I thought the Nintendo Optical Disc was supposed to be proprietary enough to stop most of the pirates?

And I wonder; does the PS3 have low piracy rates due to the expensive, proprietary BD format, or is the platform tighter against stuff like that?

Ok so according to vgchartz HotD sold 0.52 million. Only one tenth of those sales came from the US?

@bm

Just so you know, all vgchartz numbers are made up. When official numbers are released vgchartz is always wrong.

In its first month in the US(last sales we saw reported) it did about 45,000 copies. http://nintendo.joystiq.com/2009/03/22/house-of-the-dead-overkill-sells-45k-in-february/

The Wii Optical Disc can be cracked, though. Anything can. The harder part is getting the unsigned code to run on the system, which is where the (now-deceased) Twilight Hack and newer crap like BannerBomb comes in to play.

It was really, really hard to get unsigned code running on GameCube, mostly because you had to purchase like $100 worth of games and accessories to do it (PSO workaround through a PC program called PSO proxy, then a broadband adapter and a crossover cable), but once you got that, it was relatively easy.

Nutman: that's some heavy accusations. I really think these are fairly accurate numbers since the games have been out for a while. And yeah I don't think Joystiq is going to report the sales of every game like six months later. It's only interesting when it fails to sell a million on day one.

Odd though that New Super Mario Bros's downloads dwarfed that of HOTD:OC but it also sold a buttload.

Hell, even I have my Wii hacked with USB Loader GX but I own a legit copy of NSMBWii (of course, the game has issues if not running off a real copy, and frankly I can afford to buy it).

The title right above HoTD:O is Wii Sports Resort, which you need an extra ($20) chunk of plastic attached to your controller (per player) to actually play. So, more people downloaded a game that they needed to buy something else to actually use than downloaded HoTD:O? This proves one of two things:

1.) People who pirate games are monumentally stupid.

2.) These numbers are fabricated.

@bm

Is it still an accusation when it is universally accepted to be true? vgchartz is made up.

@Hel

The numbers are collected from trackers so they should be correct. I can definitely see them pirating Resort more because...

A. It was a pretty hyped up game that almost everyone should enjoy
and B. Yes you need motionplus to play, but that only costs $20 compared to $50 for the game.

I reserved al of those and own them all, Conduit included. I dig them all, including Dead Space. This is quite a shame.

I bought my Wii for Nintendo games. And in many ways, I appreciate Nintendo's draconian control over their software.

They allow shitty third party games to be released to make first party software shine. And even if a 3rd party software manages to be a cut above the rest, the audience won't care. All third party software gets a bad rap on the Wii now.

Nintendo has some shrewd Mo-fos in charge.

The system reaching Atari 2600 levels of crapware is not necessarily a good thing...

I too just look to our Wii for Nintendo's games. No matter how much people want to act like the Wii versions of games are as great as they are for the PS3/360, the fact is that when I pay over $50 to get a game I want it to play, sound and look great. So I get my 3rd party games for those other systems largely, so I can get the most from my purchases. Therefore, I pay par less attention to 3rd party titles being made for the Wii alone as well.

Cry all you want but the system doesn't have the power of the others, so it just doesn't stand-up to them when it comes to 3rd party titles where the high cost of entry can be justified by enjoying the polish.

@ duke

"Cry all you want but the system doesn't have the power of the others, so it just doesn't stand-up to them when it comes to 3rd party titles where the high cost of entry can be justified by enjoying the polish."

PS2 isn't as strong as the NGC or the original XBOX (the 1st XBOX) and it still MOPPED THE FLOOR with both consoles. a console doesn't have to be a power house beast just so that it can have great third party titles. the PS2 and NDS (or DSi which ever floats your boat) are prime examples of this.

Here we are talking about a console that sold a hell of a lot and leads (like the PS2 did), yet the 3rd party sales are not following suit like with the PS2. I think people largely don't get the new version of a 3rd party game (made for each console) on the Wii because it doesn't offer what the other consoles do in game value to them. The fact is that the Wii 3rd party sales blow compared to the other game makers - and there has to be a reason that gamers are not throwing their money to that console's titles.

I am not saying it has to be the most powerful to have great 3rd party titles. What I said was that people when getting a game on each of this gen's systems will more likely go with the version that offers the most bang for the buck, and the one that looks and plays worse (online generally) will not be the one they reach for if they can choose.

@ Duke

ahh yes yes yes. i understand what your trying to say now. yes i do have to agree with you there. I'd likely go with the console that gives me more bang for my buck and this generation it does seem to be that the PS3 and 360 are those consoles. i only wish the Wii would have a larger of quality game's such as the 360 and PS3 do. but honestly i have brought myself to believe that the Wii will not reach a time where shovelware no longer exists in its library. it pains me to say so but quite honestly that seems to be where the Wii is headed. tons of shovelware and VERY few quality titles.

This doesn't exactly break my heart. I picked up both MadWorld and HoTD:Overkill and wasn't really blown away by either. While I did enjoy MW a hell of a lot more than No More Heroes, I still didn't like it enough to finish it. As for HoTD:O, the game itself is pretty fun (clever writing, solid presentation,) but the interface just never did it for me. I don't know if it's the fact that for precision the Wii's IR pointer is dogshit (something that's bothered me since Zelda) or that I don't enjoy holding my arm out straight for 20 minutes at a time. Either way, HoTD made it onto my own personal "09 Disappointement" list. That's not to say it's a bad game, it's just a game I'm not happy I paid money for.

I read that list. It was shit.
Wait, no I didn't. It was still probably shit.

Your opinion is valuable to me.

Wait, who are you again?

If the accuracy of the IR pointer on the Wii is anything less than stellar, the fault lies with your setup. Trust me, I've seen enough setups to know that it all depends on the lighting conditions, whether your sensor bar is clearly visible to the Wiimote (putting it too far back on top of the TV is often a problem), or the settings of the LCD if you're using one. For me, the pointer is always accurate, smooth and responsive, and it's very jarring to play at someone else's place on their Wii and notice the cursor jerk all over the place all of a sudden. I can imagine people forming a bad opinion of the IR pointer if that's all they're used to.

"I don't know if it's the fact that for precision the Wii's IR pointer is dogshit (something that's bothered me since Zelda) or that I don't enjoy holding my arm out straight for 20 minutes at a time."

I have to call shenanigans on these two points.

#1 the Wii's IR is extremely precise in almost every game I've played, save for some developer programming short sight in certain 3rd party titles.

#2 who honestly (that actually plays Wii at least) literally "holds" their arm out straight when playing? Have you not learned to rest your elbow on your leg/arm chair/pillow/couch cushion when playing anything IR based, good sir?

My sensor and pointer issues must be user error then because I've used it with 5 different TVs (2 LCD panels, 1 LCD projection, and 2 CRTs) in various rooms in varous houses over the years and I've never once gotten the pixel perfect precision necessary to excel in a light gun game. The closest I got it to working well was in Metroid Prime (a game I had an entirely seperate set of issues with, the controls not being one of them.)

Also, Cody, I don't know how you hold a gun (I use a Perfect Shot on the Wii) but I know I personally don't rest my arm on a pillow or on my lap. While my arm isn't straight out (more of an angle,) I still have to aim it at the screen and look down the sights, which means it needs to be held at eye level. I guess I could try taking it out of the housing and putting it on my lap but that completely breaks the purpose of playing a lightgun game for me in the first place.

@ Tuna

Ah, I thought you were using the Wiimote itself.

But yeah, the IR based wii and the arcade based lightgun shooter units of old are certainly not the same beast. Arcade Light gun games in general just do not transition well over to Wii, which is why I think there's been the hybrid, adventure approach taken most of the time (i.e. DS: Extraction, RE Chronicles).

Ok ok wait. So you were buying this lightgun game -expecting- to play it like a lightgun game, even buying a gun shell for the Wiimote.... and one of your complaints about the game is having to hold up your arm?

I'm sorry but... what the fuck?

No, my problem with the game was my IR pointer's inaccuracy (percieved or not.) The fact that my arm got tired from holding the gun up and my finger got tired of pulling the trigger are unfortunate side effects that caused me to not want to play the game any more.

Like I said, I didn't think it was a bad game, I thought it was a game that I was disappointed that I spent money on. The latter is not SEGA's fault, it's mine, but that doesn't change the fact that I wouldn't buy a sequel if they were to release one.

I'll repeat: what did you think you were gonna do with lightgun games, that you apparently actually bought a gun shell for? Aim with the thumbstick?

What did they expect with a lineup like that? Madworld was shallow, The Conduit would have been good in 1997, and no one buys lightgun games so it doesn't matter how awesome House of the Dead was.

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