And coming back to the Conduit, games that have a decent TV add campaign( I've seen the commercial like 20 times over the last 3 weeks on cable channels and I really don't watch tv that much) are expected to have strong beginning. That's just the way TV adds work.
They lead to people purchasing products on impulse.
TV adds do not create legs...

Right now the only thing we can tell is that the marketing campaign failed to generate enough sales to justify its existence.

Even if the game ends up having decent legs and selling well, I doubt any game similar to the Conduit will get the same kind of marketing in the future. Something else will have to be tried...
Marketing third party core games for the Wii on TV does not seem to work ( and this has very little to do with review scores).
That should at least answer all the Wii owners that blame low sales of previous core third party Wii games to the lack of marketing, it's better to have low marketing than a marketing that can't even generate additional sales to pay for itself...

I'm once again going to have to bring up Carnival Games as an example of a game with a long TV campaign and long legs to match. Wii Music had a huge television campaign and a tepid launch. Call of Duty: WaW sales picked up in part thanks to Wii-specific ads which started airing well after launch.

Now, I'm not saying that I necessarily expect Conduit to achieve a long tail like these games (Wii Music and Call of Duty had the advantage of launching just in time for the holidays), and I suppose it's possible that the legs of these games is completely coincidental to their ad campaigns, but they really do suggest that TV ads can sell games beyond the first month of release. On the Wii, at least.

The Conduit seems to have bombed. At least it has underperformed badly out of the gate compared to what many expected. Sad.

But it annoys me somewhat that some posters go out of their way to find negative news about certain consoles (in this case Starscream and Wii) and never report any of the many positive news that there is to report regarding the console (Tiger Woods Wii and Motion + having a flying start for example). It just seems that some are working way to hard to come up with negatives (and this do not only apply to Starscream but to others as well.)

Bionic Commando was hardly hyped at all while The Conduit has been hyped to hell since it was shown. On a side note Bionic Commando actually had a nice story while Conduit nearly put me to sleep.  I would have to say just based on hype alone that Conduit is the true flop. It seems to have both poor sales and average reviews. Bionic Commando at least had higher reviews overall. The Wii likely did not help The Conduit's sales either considering the mainstream opinion overall on FPS on the system is... poor controls. Its something the system is going to have to try to overcome over time.

@ samus aran rules )

and who do you prefer to post the "negative" Wii news? (I'm not sure what's "negative" about posting sales data on a website focussing on hw/sw sales)

It's the slant some of the posters are taking in regards to the news that's "negative." The preliminary sales data itself is pretty hard to interpret as anything but disappointing with the possible exception of those who believe:

A) the sales data can't be right.
B) it was only expected to sell marginally anyway despite the effort made in attempting to give Wii gamers a quality shooter amongst a platform library fairly lacking in this type of game.
C) it was a budget title any way despite the R&D that went into making a proprietary game engine and subsequent marketing effort, and will still be profitable enough eventually to be considered a commercial success.

Frankly, this was to be expected.

Conduit was overhyped by many (including HVS) as Proof Positive that not only are third party games for the core demographic extremely viable on the Wii, but that this was to be the example that other developers would follow when it comes to making a legitimate attempt to create high quality core title, following a positive sales reception.

Naturally, the naysayers would be watching the debut hawkishly, waiting to call out how right their predictions were.

But, it's still an ongoing story here and until the title drops from the sales charts and we start seeing inventory being unloaded at bargain bin prices, it's still an open book.

I agree this thread is about sales, as is this website.

But it´s just very clear to me and somewhat annoying that whenever Starscream posts it´s practically always either:

a) Something positive about PSP, or secondly PS3.

b) Something negative about Nintendo, mostly Wii.

I don´t mean that we can´t post negative news about anything concerning Nintendo, or Microsoft or Sony. It just is annoying when you see one person, deliberately (at least it looks that way to me) seeking out negative news about one company in favour of positive. Do I make sense here?

What I mean is this: This is a website dedicated to sales, then try to be somewhat unbiased. It´s great that we contribute with news but we should post and analyse in a way that is as unbiased as possible. I wish that Starscream (and others this applies to as well, I don´t mean to  point finger to just him/her) would be more balanced in the newsreporting and not nitpicking news that fits one´s own preference. I admit I´m a Nintendofan but I don´t sit on the internet and post every negative news that I can find on Microsoft or Sony.

Well, ofcourse I know what you mean, because I remember becoming a bit irritated by gebx or starcraft for posting the 20th article on devs thinking that the PS3 is too hard to develop for or on some random editor from some noname website or random analyst writing their own little essay on how the PS3 failed or sth.

But in my opinion that is a very different quality from this thread, as Star Scream here only provided sales data for a very anticipated game from a source he trusted (and ended up being correct) without showing any kind of bias or personal reaction (in his OP - didn't read the whole thread), so I think this thread is totally fine.

That said I didn't follow Star Screams other Nintendo related threads (his PSP related ones seemed fine aswell - lots of good contribution in form of game announcements etc.), so he might have posted some things of dubious quality there.
Still, I'm surprised you (and Neos before) are criticizing him in this one, as I see nothing wrong with it.

Well Starscream is not trolling, that´s not what I mean and he or she IS posting a lot of newsworthy threads. I appreciate that, but in my opinon as I stated above it is somewhat onesided. It´s like if there is a great Sonyweek in Japan he or she is always first to report it and if there is a great Nintendoweek he or she doesn´t post. It´s always reporting on whatever positive there is to say about PSP or PS3 and very seldom about Nintendo (it does happen once or twice though). Like I said I don´t think it´s trolling but it´s annoying in a subtle kind of way. Anyway it´s just my opinion, and I realize that Starscream and others may disagree with me so you can just choose to ignore me =).

holy shit if this is true. What warped individuals, manipulated by twisted corporate puppet masters, would actually believe fps works WORSE on the wii? Unbelievable

My opinion, graphic whores is the reason. GRAPHICS GRAPHICS GRAPHICS, etc.