It’s not a big secret that mature rated games don’t sell super well on the Wii. The criminally underselling MadWorld (go out and buy it!) has had mediocre sales, No More Heroes didn’t sky rocket to the top of the charts (again, go buy it), and even Nintendo’s own Metroid Prime 3 was a disappointing seller — by Nintendo standards that is. Does this track record scare the guys who are putting out The Conduit, one of the most talked about mature games on the Wii? Not in the least.
Speaking to Eric Nofsinger, High Voltage’s Chief Creative Officer, I asked if the sales numbers of those critically acclaimed mature Wii games caused him to worry about not just The Conduit but the other two mature Wii games they have coming up. “I think those are great. For example, MadWorld is brought up a lot, and that is an amazingly fun game. However, at the same time, most of them are niche games. MadWorld, for instance, is a brilliant title and you and I rushed out and bought it, but it’s not mainstream gaming whereas I really and sincerely believe that what we accomplished with The Conduit is highly accessible and has a much broader appeal than MadWorld or other games like that.”
Do you agree? Have most of the hardcore, mature games that have landed on the Wii been too niche? It’s an interesting point, as once he said it I instantly realized that when developers have gone for the hardcore on the Wii they’ve often gone ridiculously niche, which is pretty odd. It’s like they jumped in the deep end and figured all the kids who had just learned how to swim would simply come on over. Then again plenty of kids with Wii’s, to continue the swimming pool metaphor, already knew how to swim. Why aren’t they diving in and picking these games up?
