are titles like Madworld and The Conduit going to actually sell?

[Resident_Hazard]

Well, I think both The Conduit and MadWorld have a lot of potential for high sales.

In large part, I don't see why MadWorld won't be at least as big a success as Viewtiful Joe.

Firstly, Nintendo fans are largely rabid over both titles. Few Nintendo fans are dismissing either game.

MadWorld is also drawing up an awful lot of attention from non-Wii gamers as a game that may finally convince them to get a Wii. On top of which, there appears to be more gamers buying the Wii than before as many of these hardcore third party titles are starting to show up with more and more announced all the time.

The big thing here is advertising. Sega is usually pretty good about supporting their games, so I'm fairly sure that they'll plug the crap out of it. And it appears that the guys at High Voltage are being vary wary about which publisher they side with. They're doing pretty much everything right with this game, I would hope that they won't suddenly slip up and let some half-assed publisher to crap it out without any support.



Basically, though, both of these games have the kind of support from the Nintendo community that is usually reserved for Nintendo games.


No More Heroes did only sell around 300,000 copies, which I believe is way above two other Suda51 titles: Contact and Killer7. That's not a bad number, but compared the number of people with a Wii, it's not really good either.

No More Heroes suffered from all of the following:
--Being wrongly, and unsatisfactorily compared to GTA.
--Ending up with Ubi-Soft who did nothing to promote the game (while fully supporting successful crap titles like their Petz series and that awful Carnival Games).
--Many gamers dismissing the game as simplistic and repetitive, and many others made the same mistake of comparing it unfavorably to GTA--a series with which NMH has little in common.
--In the end, No More Heroes overall style was that of a niche title, not a million-seller. It was very tongue-in-cheek, and despite it's faults seemed to be deliberate on the part of making art rather than a gaming experience. Many people either didn't "get" the art, or they got it and didn't care for it.


The Conduit appeals to many gamers because it's a hardcore, online, highly detailed, graphically impressive First Person Shooter. It's a game made for gamers and has every possibility helping convince many hardcore to warm up to the Wii.

MadWorld has big names behind it, tons of violent action, humor, and an art style that is easily recognizable. It won't get lost in the sea of other titles.



That said, one of the biggest threats to these titles is retail outlets. Some stores like Target, initially didn't even carry No More Heroes. And now, it's usually off on a side rack, not near the regular games. Who's to blame? Mostly, Ubi-Soft. They didn't get the game out there, they didn't push for it, they didn't get people interested enough in it. It wasn't because it was an over-the-top Mature rated title. Because Capcom still had little trouble in getting RE:UC to sell over a million copies. A good publisher and brand recognition really helped things here. These are the biggest obstacles faced by MW and Conduit.