eat.sleep.geek.

Madworld and House of the Dead: Overkill were Sega’s first attempts at getting hardcore gamers to start taking their wii’s seriously. While both games were solid titles, hell I’d even go so far as to say that Madworld was exceptional, both titles underperformed in the sales department. So with the recent release of The Conduit, and the subsequent strong showing with retailer’s cash registers it’s no wonder that the folks at Sega are doing back flips over the results. In an interview with IGN Sega’s Vice President of marketing Sean Ratcliffe had this to say about how well the game has done so far.

The game is already successful with us as the reviews have been pretty impressive. Overall the reviews have been strong, and though there will always be some naysayers we definitely feel we have been able to offer gamers the Wii experience we were looking for. Though it is still early days in the retail life of the game, we are seeing very strong week one sales and being the best shooter on the Wii means that we think we will see this game out there and selling well for a long time.

The million dollar question of course is why The Conduit and not Madworld or HotD:Overkill? Having spent a fair bit of time with all three titles, if I were asked to rank all three in order I’d tell you that Madworld is clearly the best of the three. While I think that I’d have to go with The Conduit second it would be a victory by the thinnest of margins. So why has The Conduit been a hit while the other two have underperformed in delivering the wii experience hardcore gamers are looking for from their little white console? Sean Ratcliffe thinks that multiplayer has been the difference maker.

unlike MadWorld and House of the Dead, The Conduit offers multiplayer, which really will be the key to differentiating this game from others out there. The most successful Wii games offer some element of multiplayer? element to them and this game takes that to a whole new level. Offering incredible online gameplay takes this game out of the TV room and makes it a global experience that we think the Wii gamer has been looking for.

Somebody should remind Sean that the game is a traditional FPS set in a sci-fi universe, not an over the top uberviolent cartoon, or an on rails lightgun shooter. That might have helped too. At any rate I’m betting we’ll be seen a sequel sooner rather than later.