The conduit is not mediocre. Actually is pretty decent and more than I expected from High Voltage Software, a company with little experience in FPS actually did something good with their own IP.

It has many flaws, but that's what I expected from this game. They learned as they developed. Much like the develoipers of Killzone on the PS2 (which had lower firts 2 week sales than the conduit) and then made Killzone 2

I fail to see how a new IP selling 156,000 in only 2 weeks in the States can be considered a flop..? Looks like good sales figures to me, particularly when you consider the second week's worth of sales are still 2 thirds of the opening week. House of The Dead Overkill has made Sega a profit after selling over 300,000 units, so I'd say that getting halfway to making a profit on a new IP after only 2 weeks in a single territory is a resounding success.

It has had some very harsh reviews indeed (if the aliens vs humans war and storyline is so 'generic' and deserves dropping review points/marks then why didn't the same thing happen to Halo 3 and Killzone 2..?) but thankfully it hasn't affected sales too much. In fact, word is spreading on various forums that a great deal of those reviews can't be trusted and are overly harsh...and word of mouth combined with the viral marketing campaign by HVS appears to be getting results.

^^ don't all fans look for the future?

by that argument, many other games from all systems are mediocre, as long as much many more games that are ratting less sales than the ones like the conduit and have better reviews, so they need to drop the price to be million sellers

@ the_bloodwalker
Exactly, The Conduit is just another mediocre game. The kind of mediocre game that has modest reviews and sales.

I agree only with the reviews, but not the sales.

Based on the two week sales, here's a list of mediocre games (it could be longer)

• Overlord II
• Bionic Comando
• Tales of Vesperia
• Valkyria Chronicles
• Lost Odissey
• The Darkness
• Tomb Raider Underworld

Flop is a strong word, I only give that title to games that waste money. I think Wii fans were hoping this game would have outstanding sales and reviews so other developers would bring more core and higher quality games to the Wii. Even if this game eventually sells a million copies, which won't happen for about a year if at all and after a price drop, this just isn't outstanding sales.

Edit: On a side note I own a DS, I know the feeling of disappointment time and time again. I can relate with you Wii fans.

The 1m mark tends to be the benchmark for 'outstanding' sales these days on any platform. The 300,000 mark is generally the break-even benchmark for Wii titles as House of The Dead Overkill has shown (although that does depend on the budget used for the title obviously). I'll be very interested to see how much it manages to sell after a month in each territory, I'll guarantee you that it'll be generating profits for Sega by that time.

I can see publishers fighting tooth and nail to get hold of The Grinder, although I suspect that Sega already have a deal in place dependant on sales of The Conduit.