Sega Not Giving Up On Mature Wii Games

Sega has recently taken a few attempts at developing games for the Wii that were targeted at adults rather than kids. House of the Dead: Overkill and Madworld haven't been incredibly popular, but they've done well enough to turn a profit. In Sega's eyes, this makes mature-themed games for the Wii a successful experiment, or at least one they're willing to continue. Other companies are looking to get into the act as well. EA will be releasing M-rated Dead Space: Extraction for the Wii, and Bethesda has a project in the works too.

Comments

New From Sega!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Custer's Revenge II!

Speaking of mature...

[hal2814]

Nintendo's next system will cater exclusively to mature games. It'll be called the MiiLF. It won't have the same mature marketshare as the upcoming Atari Cougar though.

Good Fun

[samael]

House of the Dead: Overkill was great fun. Recommended for two player zombie-killing action, 70s style!

Wiimote = sword?

[Aggrajag]

Some sort of hack and slash type game might be great with wiimote.

Re:Wiimote = sword?

[Gordonjcp]

What, like Red Steel?

Re:Wiimote = sword?

[DriedClexler]

Red Steel was fun, but it's not what most people like the GP was referring to. I think he meant games with a more one-to-one mapping between the Wiimote's motions and then sword's motions, which should be possible with the Wii Motion Plus or whatever (which IMHO should have been part of functionality at launch).

In Red Steel, when you swing the Wiimote, it just maps it to one of a handful of basic sword moves, plus it allows a few combos.

Not to say it isn't fun though. Red Steel lets you shoot weapons out of enemies' hands so they surrender. If you do it to a leader, his whole group surrenders. It's pretty satisfying to charge in, make the leader surrender, and then "clank, clank, ... clankclankclankclank" as all the underlings drop their weapons.

Re:Wiimote = sword?

[ookaze]

Everyone thought that, and every single game to date has sucked because the original WiiMote does not have 1-to-1 tracking. The WiiPlus supposedly adds that, and maybe then we'll finally get some fun hack and slash games... But I wouldn't hold my breath.

But what you say is BS.
Most Wii games are not simulations, they're games.
1 to 1 is just too much precision for most games, so they're forced to tone it down.
The point of the Wiimote is not to reproduce reality perfectly.
Saying every single game to date has sucked is just stupid anyway, especially when you have 1+ year old games still selling higher than new releases, just from word of mouth. This isn't the behaviour of games that suck.

Re:Controller

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Quite frankly, that's the first thing that went through my mind when the Wii came out: here you have this console with a wireless remote that vibrate and senses accelerations, and nobody has come up with a massively multiplayer online gangbang sort of game yet? It can't be that hard to make a dildo sleeve for the wiimote (and a snatch-shaped attachment for Sir) and come up with a piece of software that transmits accelerations and make faraway wiimotes vibrate accordingly.

It's about time.

[SSgt. Lagface]

While I'm no Sega/EA fanboy, I'm honestly getting sick of all the kiddie titles and messed-up ports when I pass the Wii section. My Wii is dusting right now, as the only games I ever play seriously with it are SSBB and Metroid Prime 3. From what I've seen, the "targeting family/casual/new gamer" stuff has gone overboard, with a lot of game companies getting tunnel vision in trying to get new audiences and as a result have abandoned the old.

Re:It's about time.

[MBGMorden]

My brother has hit the same problem. At first the whole Wii-mote concept seemed cool. Looked gimmicky to me so I skipped on it and bought an Xbox 360 (despite me traditionally being a Nintendo person - I've literally owned every home console they've made up until the Wii. I've owned lots of the others too, but I ALWAYS had the latest Nintendo system).

He liked it for a while. WiiFit was cool and such and he got a few more games like that (Resident Evil 4 he liked), but now the system is just sitting in a corner at his house unused every time I go over there. Any time a new video game commercial shows that looks cool he always makes the comment "You know that looks awesome. Wait till we get to the end of the commercial; I bet it's out on 360 and PS3 but not Wii.". And he's always right. He's not a hardcore gamer by any stretch of the imagination. Even when he's got a game he wants to play through he might put in an hour or two per week tops. Still though, the Wii's kiddified games eventually just don't cut it. It'd be like if every movie that came out from now on were from Pixar. Sure they're "fun for the whole family!", and I can say that I enjoy them quite a bit, but realistically SOMETIMES I want something that's a bit more mature (say, "In Bruges", which if you haven't seen you really should).

Nintendo should be taking the lead

[Xest]

Really, I'm amazed it's taking companies like Sega to take the lead on this.

Nintendo captured the casual market this console generation with an innovative controller style whilst Sony and Microsoft have fought over the hardcore market who tend to prefer these type of games.

Both Sony and Microsoft have announced their competing products to the Wii mote, and both certainly appear better than the Wii mote, although perhaps not with the Wii motion plus addon. They've also taken strides to increase their casual offerings (i.e. Microsoft's investment in games like Lips on the 360). It's clear Microsoft and Sony realise that whilst the hardcore market has more cash in it, it doesn't have enough when they're fighting each over over it so to make the kind of profits Nintendo has with the Wii they seem to understand they've got to start taking from Nintendo's market too.

The problem is Nintendo doesn't seem to recognise this, and are sticking with their casual market despite the fact it'll slowly start getting eaten away. It's hard to know if they have a trick up their sleeves or if they've become complacent with their success, but certainly I'm suprised they haven't pushed more mature games themselves to try and pull in some of the hardcore gamers from Sony and Microsoft. The problem for Nintendo is it's not as if this is the first time they've had a massive success and then just fallen back into obscurity for a few years, with something like the Wii I think many had wondered if they'd finally broken this cycle and had moved into a new era of innovation to stay permanently ahead, but right now, particularly judging by their rather weak E3 showing where they basically just showed more of the same that doesn't look like it's the case.

I suppose though historically we should probably not be suprised that it's Sega taking the lead here and not Nintendo, whilst Sega dropped out of the hardware market they always seemed to produce generally more mature games than Nintendo, so perhaps Sega are even doing it as part of a deal with Nintendo that Nintendo will remain a producer of casual games and Sega make mature games. Who knows, hopefully they're not that blind to the competition and do have a trick or two up their sleeves, but at face value this seems to absolutely not be the case right now.

Re:Nintendo should be taking the lead

[KDR_11k]

Nintendo is trying to work on the core market, the problem I see is that they're failing to leverage the Wii's primary strength to outmaneuver MS and Sony, instead producing Gamecube 1.5 games that obviously end up being nothing that'll impress HD console owners. IMO they should lower the investment into straight sequels to last gen games and instead invest in games that actually drive the point home that the Wii is the step in the right direction even for those who currently buy core games. I don't think that's impossible, games like the many xPS games on the HD consoles are massively improved by the Wiimote.

On the other hand I doubt MS and Sony have a chance at claiming the expanded market, Sony sees motion controls as a way to appeal more to the hardcore gamers while MS is going for a relaunch that will probably result in a massive backlash from their core audience which I doubt they have the guts to swallow. Natal is unsuitable for core game designs, unlike the Wiimote it's not a controller that's being improved with new features, it loses the controller completely and thereby loses all possibilities that cannot be offered by body motion detection (e.g. walking around). Natal cannot be easily added to core games since full body control needs to have the whole game designed around it so they can't have Natal-core hybrid games to appease their core audience, Natal will have to go all out casual in its software offerings and I doubt third parties will really help in that arena.

However, what's more important than arguing about technology is the software they'll offer and we haven't seen ANY software (that could be sold at retail) for either system. The Wii didn't claim the "casual" market because of the controller but because of Wii Sports and Wii Fit. Third parties are struggling severely at making games that resonate like those two with the audience and I haven't seen any evidence that MS or Sony would be more competent at that job.

Sean Malstrom suspects that Nintendo invested in the wrong direction with a focus on user generated content and only realized too late that that direction is futile, scrapping a lot of already done work and having to quickly make up something new for E3. Well, at least they have 2D Mario which is about as big a seller as Wii Fit (3D Mario doesn't come close).

Re:Controller

[FauxPasIII]

> Do more mature games require a different style controller? Move over Guitar Hero, it's time for Adult Hero.

You might not be from the U.S... things are different here. In the U.S. "mature" means over-the-top, distracting levels of violence. Sex is not allowed at any ratings level.

can we stop calling super violent games "mature"?

[syrinx]

Most people grow out of finding tons of gratuitous blood "cool" when they're about 17.

Most of these games are 15-year-old boy games, not "mature" or "adult" games. (Not even going with the "adult = pr0n" thing there, since really porn is pretty immature too.)

Re:Was Wii Ever About Adult Games?

[SSgt. Lagface]

I don't think Nintendo never marketed it as such. It only said that game devs can now reach out to a broader audience, and I think that the devs have taken that suggestion too far. As for zombie-bashing, I've heard rumors about a watered-down Dead Rising for the Wii.

Sequel to game on other console

[tepples]

I don't want a sequel to a game that only came out on the other consoles.

Apparently, over 9.8 million people who bought Final Fantasy VII, a sequel on a Sony console to three or six games (depending on region) that had come out on Nintendo consoles, disagreed with you.

Madworld

[Quiet_Desperation]

Madworld was interesting, but I returned the rental after beating the first boss. The controls weren't so hot. All the game did was make me miss the right stick for controlling the camera. I kept approaching enemies in round about ways to get the camera oriented the way I wanted (at a spike wall, for example) when I grabbed them. The monochromatic graphics were cool initially, but they made the eyes weary after a while.

On my list

[HalAtWork]

I've got MadWorld, The Conduit, No More Heroes, Scarface, The Godfather, Medal of Honor: Heroes 2, Sam & Max, Resident Evil 4 & Umbrella Chronicles, Okami, Trauma Center, Excite Truck, Zelda, Blast Works.

These are all great games for hard core gamers. I admit, the Wii doesn't have every base covered, but for a bunch of games that work well with motion controls and are fun for hard core gamers, they have a decent spread. And if you wrote off games like Excite Truck or Okami, as many did, give them a second look.

Re:Controller

[Hatta]

Oh, I'd agree with that. I just get tired of the assumption many people have that natural==good.