Madworld needs Gordon Ramsay

It was raining the other day. I was meant to go trainspotting with my friend Dwayne, Dwayne Dibley. But he forgot his thermos, and Dwayne never goes anywhere without that. What to do? I got all my old VHS tapes out and re-classified them according to the date I recorded their content. Once that was done I was at a loose end, so I went to vgchartz and had a look round.

They have a lot of sales data there. It may or may not be accurate, but lets assume it gives a half decent idea of what sells.

The Wii has just over sixty titles that have crossed the million mark. From Wii Fit at twenty-odd million down to a Hannah Montana game that has just kissed the mill. The core Nintendo games are there, Galaxy, Zelda, Mario Kart and Brawl. Metroid Prime 3 is the least successful of these at around 1.3 million. Is this why the series is moving on with Other M?

These core Nintendo gamers know what they like then. One thing they don’t like is games like Madworld, The Conduit and Dead Space Extraction. Admittedly, its early days for Dead Space but the signs aren’t great. All these games are new, not part of a series, and perhaps that explains their lack of success. These have only just scraped the 300,000 mark so far.

Sequels don’t do that well. House of the Dead 2&3 is into the millions but House of the Dead: Overkill is way behind that, in spite of being made for the Wii and well-received. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 nearly made the million, but the superior sequel PES 2009 is way behind. Tiger Woods ‘o8 is the best-selling Tiger game. The updates from 2009 and this year’s outstanding MotionPlus version are nowhere close to that, despite being better. Read more »

MadWorld triumphs!

Uncut, unrestrained, unstoppable. From James over at MCV:

The British Board of Film Classification has given Sega’s upcoming Wii title MadWorld an 18 rating, clearing it to be released in the UK without any cuts being made to its content.

The BBFC’s consumer advice bears the warning “Contains very strong, stylised, bloody violence”, but reveals the game “was passed with no cuts made”.

MadWorld has been the subject of high levels of both controversy and anticipation, billed by gamers as one of the first truly hardcore games exclusive to Wii and slammed by tabloids for its violence.

In August, watchdog Mediawatch-UK called for the BBFC to refuse classification for MadWorld, while the Daily Mail dubbed the title the “most violent Wii game ever”.

However, MadWorld has enjoyed the support of the gaming public, who fought back against Mediawatch-UK’s campaign with a wave of hostile emails.

MadWorld is due for release in March.

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