Happy to see titles likeMadWorldon the Wii? Sega plans to keep em coming, according to company president Mike Hayes. In a recent interview withWiredmagazine, Hayes said that he believes the install base of the Wii is large enough that these types of games are welcomed, even if the sales figures don’t break any records. More from that interview:
“What we can say is that we’ll still do mature games for the Wii market because with an install base of some 34 million in Europe and America (maybe half of whom don’t own Xbox 360s and PS3s)…. So even if you took half of those where they’re not into those (core) games, you’ve still got eight million consumers to go for … So I think the sheer scale of the Wii allows a shooter, or a mature game, to be a niche but a successful niche. And because the development costs can be less on Wii, that means you can sell less to be successful… We can take more risk on the Wii… You’ll see more games in that genre coming from us.”
Great news for those of us whose hearts beat faster at the suggestion of more mature titles! Hayes specifically addresses the issue ofMadWorld‘s sales as well:
“… Sega would be extremely arrogant to have a title that didn’t do as well as we thought on a platform and then say, ‘Those kind of games don’t sell on that platform’ …MadWorldsales were very disappointing, but was that to do with the platform? Was it that people didn’t like the art style? Or that people didn’t like the way the game played through? It could be many things, which we’re obviously researching.”
Even if all the other developers in the world give up on the Wii (and we know they won’t), perhaps Sega will still give us something to look forward to. Makes you wonder what we might expect from them next.
[ViaEDGE]
