Sega: The Conduit a success despite "depressed" Wii market
COO Mike Hayes expects videogame sales to bounce back following price cuts and new Xmas releases
Sega's latest mature Wii title, The Conduit, is selling consistently despite a generally slow market for content on Nintendo's home console, said the publisher.
And according to Mike Hayes, COO of Sega, the videogame market is set to see a climb in sales following a slow first-half, once hardware price cuts and new Christmas software hits retail.
"We actually regard The Conduit as a success," said Hayes, speaking to Wired. "We shipped 300,000 units, sold through half of those and now it’s at the point where it’s selling consistently at a time when Wii sales are generally depressed in the marketplace."
As well as the high installed base for the console, Hayes said that developing titles for the console is cheaper than for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, which helps the publisher take more chances on the format.
"I think the sheer scale of the Wii allows a shooter, or a mature game, to be a niche but a successful niche. And because the development costs can be less on Wii, that means you can sell less to be successful…. We can take more risks on the Wii," he said.
Sega is acknowledging that the videogame market is currently depressed, said Hayes, but he expects an upturn soon, as savvy consumers wait for an expected price cut on hardware, and the Christmas period sees sales once again rise.
"The PlayStation 3 is rumoured to be having a price drop. Well, the consumers are so smart, they kind of know that one’s going to be coming so they’re not going to rush out and buy a PlayStation 3 until they know. So that’s going to depress the market slightly," noted Hayes.
"We’re not taking any actions specifically based on the general state of the economy because we think the issues in videogaming are specific and relevant to videogaming.
"We’re acknowledging that the packages market is down," he said. "And then you layer on top of that all the digital business that’s going on that’s not being measured in our whole environment, I just don’t see how we can be too down about the market. I think the economic part of that is only altering the shape, not the actual size. I think with holiday sales, [the industry} will bounce back and get us to that point where we’ll see the market was as big as it was last year."