Constantine Hantzpulos, studio director of Sega, has explained how Sega may not create mature titles on Wii again, after being burned by House of the Dead:Overkill and MadWorld, and being far from impressed by the sales of such games from competitors.   
 
Speaking to 1up's 4 Guys podcast team, he said the following:

"Are we going to do more mature titles for the Wii? Probably not. Look at Dead Space. We were stunned. That was my litmus test. Basically, it's like, okay, you got EA, who can put all the marketing muscle behind this, an established franchise that scored well on 360 and PS3. They should be able to actually hit this out of the park, right? We get numbers, real numbers aside from NPD, and I'm like, Woah"     

They could make rapelay on the wii which would sell like 8 million copies.

 What he said about Natal was interesting.

"  What he said about Natal was interesting. "

I kind of sucks, because I liked HotD:O, and to a lesser extent mad world.  business kills fun, I guess. 

" @Warfare said:

"  What he said about Natal was interesting. "

 What did he say? "

On that note, I should buy Silent Hill: Shattered Memories one of these days.

WOOOOOOOOOO i bought mad world so its not my fault.

" @Linkyshinks said:

" @Warfare said:

"  What he said about Natal was interesting. "

 What did he say? "

 Big games being killed in favor of more casual games. "

Oh, wow. I was going to skip over that Podcast because I'm getting kind of sick of hearing "industry insider" information over journalistic opinion in such podcasts, but now I'm probably going to go back and listen to it.
 
You can't blame them. Although I (and I guess I'm not alone, as I've heard it brought up quite frequently) think the reason most "mature" Wii games don't sell particularly well is because they actually don't reach out to any audience due to their mediocrity. Dead Space: Extraction is one of those completely baffling ones, though. The game looks superb from both a gameplay and story side,  it's built into an awesome and already established game world, and it reviewed rather well. You'd think it would sell well considering how many 360/PS3 owners also own a Wii, so a lot of the crowd that was already hooked on the original game would also have access to this title. Then, you've got the masses of people who only own the Wii, who you may think would be interested in a genuinely good, mature game for the system. I guess that's just not the case. I guess the Wii will forever be that family/children console. That's not necessarily a bad thing. You've got two other main consoles that are ripe with mature content, and both are soon to be getting motion controls. I mean, if the games just aren't working, then stop forcing them. I guess that's what they're doing here, isn't it?
 
I dunno; in Dead Space's case, maybe it's just because of the stigma attached to "on rails shooters." How well did Umbrella Chronicles sell?

Umbrella sold well for Capcom.

I was disappointed by Mad World. Platinum dropped the ball in my opinion.

Smart decisions by SEGA, as always. Lol ;)

I love their litmus test being Dead Space: Extraction. Their test can't be House of the Dead 2 & 3 and Overkill (which sold good for what it is, and actually similar to several large scale HD projects like some JRPGs that nobody calls flops despite their much higher development costs), it can't be Umbrella Chronicles or Resident Evil 4, it has to be the worst of the bunch in terms of sales. It has to be a spin off of an IP which has not appeared on Wii and met lukewarm sales on the HD platforms despite critical acclaim. It has to be an outsourced game. It has to be an on rails shooter. Yup, Dead Space Extraction. Which isn't their own game to know what resources it used up, and it's a game where its own developers and publishers thought lightgun shooters aren't worhwhile titles and spent all their PR effort into trying to convince people it's not a rail shooter, but a guided first person experience. It didn't work. Lol. All the critical acclaim in the world will not make up for the initial announcement week which had everyone pissed off @ them or laughing at the Wii userbase for having it on rails, nobody asked for an on rails Dead Space. Nobody bought it.

That said, I'm not going to miss SEGA's mature output if all they were gonna put out is MadWorld 2 (unless they decided to give it Bayonetta-like budget and effort, proportionally that is, it should still be cheaper as a Wii game). Whatever type of games they put out should at least be good regardless of their age rating. Anyway, this guy's basically a developer, he doesn't decide, and past SEGA statements from the actual big boys have said pretty much the opposite, that they're satisfied with the output for their titles (including Overkill but except for MadWorld I think) and that they intend to do more. This dude is speaking for himself and is just covering his ass by trying to say, see, it's not just our games that failed for reasons we don't know even though it's our job to know, it's a trend that happens across different companies. And lol @ implying Dead Space: Extraction was marketed so much by the usual EA hype machine. Yeah, on gaming sites whose audience had already decided it hates rail shooters. Big whoop.

Anyway, whatever SEGA, just bring back some of your loved franchises in actually good form even if they aren't mature or on Wii. Please?

It seems like most Mature games don't sell on Wii, which is a bummer.

" WOOOOOOOOOO i bought mad world so its not my fault. "

" @Warfare said:

" @Linkyshinks said:

" @Warfare said:

"  What he said about Natal was interesting. "

 What did he say? "

 Big games being killed in favor of more casual games. "

 I doubt very much that will happen on either 360 or PS3, I think it'll simply provide more of a choice to consumers of casual games. Right now when families opt for casual games they instantly think Nintendo above all others, but if software of a high standard capable on those machines is put out, slowly but surely it could eat into Nintendo's share. Not significantly at first, but enough to make the venture worthwhile, so big is Nintendo's market. There will be mature games using the controllers, and I trust they will be of a very high quality, so It doesn't bother me. I think most developers  when creating casual games, will also choose to use Wii over Natal anyway, they know there's an established audience of casual gamers on that console.  Natal development kits may also price out the really crappy developers, if Microsoft have any sense.  "

you're right - it can't be Resident Evil 4 or House of the Dead 2 & 3 Returns because those are ports of old games that were not a gamble and cost fuck all to put on the system.  And as far as Umbrella Chronicles goes, look at how well Darkside Chronicles is doing (read: badly).  And saying "we're satisfied with how well MadWorld and Overkill are doing" has always been double-speak, obviously.  Their Wii line-up didn't do well this year and therefore they've got nothing else planned (and as awesome as Overkill is and even though it eventually did okay, do you really think they wouldn't be gearing up for a sequel if it really did well by them?  I'd like to direct you to a comment Constantine made in the podcast which I'm assuming you didn't listen to that was to the effect of "we'll probably break even on [Overkill] in the end," which - SURPRISE! - doesn't exactly say that the game "did well").  Yes, Dead Space was a marketing failure on EA's part and no, it shouldn't be a surprise that it failed to do well.  That doesn't change the fact that it's a psychotic failure on the level of Bionic Commando despite being in a genre that has done well on Wii before and being part of a beloved cult series.  The only game I can think of that has done worse in recent memory is Spyborgs.

Oh no, Wii can't sell every single game in a genre that isn't even considered worthy of putting out on other consoles, and/or said consoles can't even sell one game in that genre, what a failure the Wii is!

It's simple. The main demographic the Wii is presented to is not interested in mature titles.

" It's simple. The main demographic the Wii is presented to is not interested in mature titles. "

" They could totally make a motion controlled sex game where you use the Wii-mote to give handjobs. "

The problem is that MadWorld and House of the Dead, though nice efforts, are just immature games. 
 
We need some real Mature games.

" @Linkyshinks said:

" @Warfare said:

"  What he said about Natal was interesting. "

 What did he say? "

 A number of projects  for Natal being killed.  31 min into the podcast. "

Oh, and Sega continues to be run by idiots.

"DSC is doing worse because a) it's tainted by the prequel which, despite good sales, wasn't a really good game, many people probably bought it after enjoying Resident Evil 4 and were disappointed with the quality,"

Critical acclaim? Its metascore is 75 thanks to a handful of way over the top ratings it did not deserve at all, some from Nintendo publications. The game is a lightgun game without lightgun calibration (which means lightgun shells are pointless as trying to aim down sights will make you 100% inaccurate), graphics that are worse than RE4 despite being on rails, frame rate and other graphical issues all over the place, recycled content from last gen games, and it just screams low budget in every single way. It's one of the worse lightgun shooters on Wii (from the ones that matter anyway, not against Mad Dog McCree). All it has going for it is that it's Resident Evil and has a lot of content (more than DSC actually, but quality > quantity, even though it still lacks proper calibration sadly). In any case, I was talking in relation to the last RE game on Wii, and that was RE4, so even if you just go by the critic opinions then it's still a vastly inferior product making the leap from awesome to okay (RE4 Wii has 91 on metacritic versus UC's 75). Anyway, it's my opinion of the game from all I've seen and played, feel free to disagree, I don't really wanna know why. Reviews for Wii just suck anyway, Darkside Chronicles probably has a similar score but is a far superior product in everything but quantity. Yet it certainly doesn't deserve a 10/10 due to its own shortcomings which to me means Umbrella Chronicles should have gotten even lower scores as it has way more. Anyway, I'm glad that out of all that you potentially disagree with just one line, one point, maybe to your taste that one's wrong, that's fine by me.

As a newly minted owner of a Wii I'll just voice my opinion why I haven't bought Dead Space or Madworld (Yet), not because 'mature' games on the Wii are bad but because neither of these games make me very interested. As far as Madworld goes the visual style just looks unappealing, the only reason I'm going to be buying it is to give it a chance at $10 but otherwise everything about that game just turns me off is a really bad way. As for Dead Space, well it looks OK but really it's a lightgun shooter and even the greatest most awesome lightgun shooter is going to elicit a somewhat tepid response. 
 
So yeah, it's not because they're mature it's because they just don't seem that great, which I guess is a point that seems to get lost when people talk about mature games on the Wii. Meh.

Neither. That part was referring to Umbrella Chronicles and why its sequel, Darkside Chronicles, is doing worse than that in sales.

:-P

" @scarace360 said:

" WOOOOOOOOOO i bought mad world so its not my fault. "

I bought Madworld and House of Dead: Overkill, so it certainly isn't my fault.  I hardly buy "mature" games anyway.  They aren't my idea of fun, except HoD:O, that was sensational.  Give me a fun game and I'll be happy. "

" @oldschool said:

" @scarace360 said:

" WOOOOOOOOOO i bought mad world so its not my fault. "

I bought Madworld and House of Dead: Overkill, so it certainly isn't my fault.  I hardly buy "mature" games anyway.  They aren't my idea of fun, except HoD:O, that was sensational.  Give me a fun game and I'll be happy. "

You know what, I'm starting to feel the same way. It seems people only give a shit about games if you shoot people or kill people in them and to be honest, I'm getting really bored with shooting people on my 360. It just seems every game's the same thing... Yeah MW2 was great, I got all 1000 points out of that in like a week but am I excited for Bad Company 2? Hell no! It's the same thing... just shooting people.
 
I'm kinda moving toward more interesting and unique games like Borderlands and SFIV ect., Sure Borderlands is more shooting dudes but it's actualy for the most part... fun. I am thinking of trading in my 360 and games at some point this year and grabbing a PS3 because it just feels like games are a little more crazy and varied on that platform, probably because it's still got a lot of Japanese flavour even though it's caving in to Western pressures of "your game must have a red dot scope and head decapatations or it won't sell well".  This is getting kinda off-topic and sorry for that but does anyone reccomend a good RPG? I haven't played an RPG since I was like 12. I'm not saying it has to be super complicated crazy but when I was younger I really enjoyed games that just made you think more, wierd platform-adventures with RPG stories and elements were my favourites but lately I'm just playing damn shooters and it's boring. I bought a copy of Knights of The Old Republic ages ago at my local gamestore but never got more then an hour in it. Is that game worth playing now? Maybe I'll get Dragon Age, that seems interesting. "

" They could totally make a motion controlled sex game where you use the Wii-mote to give handjobs. "

You guys on the Wii forum write too much. 
 
The Wii audience is not looking for these games. Period. Most of it anyway.

You're right. No audience, including the Wii audience, is looking for those games at all. Especially not their litmus test.

Unless you've played many mature lightgun shooters on the others and I've somehow missed their glorious existence.

Writing too much is better than intentionally leaving out the proper qualifications just to put a negative Wii spin on them.

"Last July (Gary Dunn), September (Mike Hayes) and this week (James Rebours), bigger SEGA execs said exactly the opposite, and giving much more precise comparison data from the Wii side of things than this "b-buttt... Dead Space did so bad!" bs."

1. Make an M-rated Wii game
2. Make it so nobody knows the game exists.
3. ???
4. Profit!

Maybe Sega should try making better mature games. The audience is there but it's a shame that these ignorant Japanese developers have no idea how to tap into it. Mad World is the opposite of what the Wii needs. It tries to be mature by simply adding lots of blood and cursing and saying "This is what them kids like. Right?" While completely ignoring the fact that the game is completely shallow.

I hope Silent Hill: Shattered Memories sells well enough to keep developers interested in production of mature games for the Wii.  I don't mind the occasional Mario game, but my psyche can only take so much pastel-colored, kid-friendly platformers.
 
@Linkyshinks: Thanks for posting these news articles about the Wii. 

@Scooper.  There a shitton of mods which bring Oblivion into and way beyond Fallout3 looks.

I've never liked "just shooters" "light gun games" guided experience games" "on-rail shooters", so fuck 'em. I thought about buying Dead Space Extraction, but there again, I loved RE4 on the Wii and didn't buy RE5 because of the controls. I loved Dead Space, but to turn it into a light gun game or whatever, kind of turned me off. Give me a third person perspective and I'm there. Imagine if the original Dead Space was a guided experience... yeah, you see my point. I hope that Silent Hill: Shattered Memories does well, so developers and publishers see what really works on the Wii.

Goodbye madworld.