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Sega Veering Away From Wii-Based Maturity
Sega’s mature titles have commonly been critically well received and underachievers in sales. The publisher of MadWorld and House of the Dead: Overkill has not ignored this quandary, and has shared their concerns on a recent 1up podcast.
Speaking about Sega’s stab at the Mature market, studio director Constantine Hantzopoulos said, “I have to say that it was a space that was open and we took a gamble on it. We did some research, it said there was an audience out there.”
Regarding the console manufacturer’s involvement with Sega’s teen-rated FPS, he said, “I won't comment about Nintendo, they did champion The Conduit as a 'this is a Nintendo game.' And, you know, I think they did okay by us. At the end of the day, I just think that you're seeing kids are skewing much younger towards next-gen.”
"We put out some pretty decent content. I mean, House of the Dead: Overkill and MadWorld are great Wii games,” he continued. “They're both doing okay and at the end of the day we'll make our numbers - that's good. Conduit's done quite well for us. It's been slow burn. That’s the other thing you find out about the Wii. It's not necessarily first three weeks like most titles. And DS. It's a longer burn, actually.
"But that begs the question, are we going to do more mature titles for the Wii?" Hantzopoulos asked. “And it’s like, probably not. 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 quite 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.'"
The NPD reports that Extraction only sold 9,000 units between its late September release and the end of October. With EA’s space zombie shooter reflecting the same troubles as Sega’s rated-M titles, the grittier gaming scene on the Wii is started to look pretty grim.
[Via GameIndustry.Biz]
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