NEW YORK — Despite disappointing sales of hard-core Wii titles like MadWorld and The Conduit, Sega remains committed to creating mature videogames for the casual console.

"You'll see more games in that genre coming from us," said Sega President and COO Mike Hayes (pictured) at a Tuesday press event here.

Aside from reaffirming the company's plan to crank out bloody Wii games, Sega demonstrated its lineup of upcoming titles and showed that it was aiming for both hard-core and casual gamers. Sega showed spy-themed RPG Alpha Protocol, sci-fi shooter Alien vs. Predator and recently delayed actioner Bayonetta, which will let gamers play a shape-shifting witch.

On the casual side, there was the sequel to best-selling Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games; Step & Roll, a new Balance Board-focused Super Monkey Ball title; and exercise game Daisy Fuentes Pilates.

Wired.com spoke with Hayes and Sega Vice President of Marketing Sean Ratcliffe about Bayonetta's delay, the importance of "mommy bloggers," surviving the economic downturn and creating titles that will appeal to Western gamers.

The full Q&A is below.

Wired.com: MadWorld was a widely praised title, but sales were disappointing. Why do you think that is? Do you think that "core" games just don't sell on the Wii?

Mike Hayes: It's difficult because it was a critically acclaimed title; it was extreme but good. The thing that we're saying is, Sega would be extremely arrogant to have a title that didn't do as well as we thought on a platform and then say, "Those kind of games don't sell on that platform." I think if you take our slew of more mature games — House of the Dead Overkill did really well in Europe, and for some reason even though it's a big (intellectual property) it did less well in North America. So that's kind of like a win and a miss that's kind of come out neutral.

*MadWorld *sales were very disappointing, but was that to do with the platform? Was it that people didn't like the art style? Or that people didn't like the way the game played through? It could be many things, which we're obviously researching.

__Wired.com: __What about The Conduit?

__Hayes: __We actually regard *The Conduit *as a success. 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. So what does that tell you? We still kind of don't know.

What we can say is that we'll still do mature games for the Wii market because with an install base of some 34 million in Europe and America (maybe half of whom don't own Xbox 360s and PS3s).... So even if you took half of those where they're not into those (core) games, you've still got 8 million consumers to go for. So 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.

__Wired.com: __So Sega will continue to have a commitment to making hard-core games on the Wii, despite the sales of MadWorld.

__Hayes: __Absolutely. You'll see more games in that genre coming from us.

Wired.com: Bayonetta has been moved to early 2010. There seems to be more and more games delayed to that time period. How do you feel about that for Bayonetta?

__Sean Ratcliffe: __ I think there's quality titles coming down the pipeline anywhere.... There's always going to be good products around you. It's just a matter of setting your release date, working with your customers, the retailers and making sure you've got everything in place. And we feel confident that Bayonetta's set in the right point in time. We know it's a great quality title, no doubt about that, so now we just have to communicate to the consumers about when it's going to be available on the shelf, and we'll work with our retail partners to do that. We're confident we'll do a good job there.

__Hayes: __What we don't want to do is move, then say we're launching on Jan. 29th — that would be crazy. We want to make sure that we stagger that period after Christmas. Hopefully, as publishers, we'll be smart in the points that we release and don't create another November in February. But I acknowledge your point's a very good one.

Ratcliffe: We have to take a leap out of the movie industry. They manage their portfolio quite well. The movie companies sort of get together — I don't know how they do it, I don't know if they physically sit around the table and divide it up — but somehow they sort of know and communicate with each other when the big titles are coming out. I think they have a feeling. What's happening in the games industry — right as soon as someone names a date, then people go, "Then we're going to move around it."

Action game

Wired.com: Is there anything you've learned as the former head of Sega Europe that you're taking with you over to North America? Are there any strategies that worked over there that you'll try to apply over here?

__Hayes: __There are detailed process points, but that's very operational. The road map was always being driven by a collaboration between North America and Europe in so far as, unless it's a very specific product, like Football Manager Live in Europe, which sells a million units on PC every year, most titles have to be successful in both. So there's been a consensus approach in any case. I don't think there's much done in Europe that we would want to do in North America. In fact, interestingly, now being here, I'm finding things that we do in North America are cool that we should be doing in Europe. How odd is that? I think that's the whole point: It's about how as an operation can we be as efficient and collaborative as possible.

__Wired.com: __Can you give an example of one thing you'd like to try in Europe that you've liked over here?

__Hayes: __Well, it's what's going on here at the moment, the mommy bloggers. What a brilliant idea. I'm sure there are mommy bloggers in Europe. But I'm not aware that we've done a press event specifically for them. And with the mass-market nature of videogaming now, and how important moms are — not just in the purchase, but as consumers themselves — what a great idea. So I think that's something I'd love to see more of in European territories. Just as one example. I think it's having that view of both that we can share the benefits.

__Wired.com: __Especially since you've said a lot of territories in Europe are more family-oriented.

Hayes: Yes, I think that's a great point. In fact, it's probably more relevant in countries like Spain and actually in Germany. Germany's probably a territory where this whole mass-market acceptance of videogames has yet to happen because parents are still very concerned about what their children are playing so that would be very good case in point where that would work. See, there's another idea that came just from thinking out loud. (laughs) Because I was just thinking in the U.K. but actually it's probably more appropriate for Germany.

I think one of the things pertaining to that though, in the reorganization — we have excellent studios in Japan, and it's very important that they're making titles that are very relevant for Western territories. There's Sonic, there's (Mario and Sonic at The Olympic Games) — that's done extremely well — and Super Monkey Ball. I think the plan for us to get more of that extremely successful, Western-relevant content from our Japanese studios as well. And that's something that this reorganization will allow us to do quite successfully.

The upcoming Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games

Wired.com: How do you think Sega can do that though, specifically?

Hayes: On the one hand, you've got brilliant Japanese development studios, like our partnership with Platinum Games. *Bayonetta *is just a very Western-relevant but very Japanese-inspired title, and we're quite excited about that doing very well. That's a good case where Japanese excellence is in place.

And that will actually do well in Japan as well. And then you look at Sonic and the Sonic teams, and how they created titles which fundamentally only sold in the West and how can we look at what's been doing well in that genre and try and add to the success that Sonic's already had. So I guess it's the teams probably taking more of a detailed look at what works in the West — what makes a good shooter, what makes a good Western RPG, what makes a great children's platform action-adventure game. And I think it's by having that focus more on the big market of Europe plus America where I think there will be some more development focus on providing appropriate titles for the market, if that makes sense.

__Wired.com: __How is Sega is dealing with the economic downturn and what's your strategy moving forward?

Hayes: Our general view is that we acknowledge the recession, particularly in its wider field. I don't think we're as convinced that the recession is affecting the videogames market as perhaps some of our competitors are stating. I think we're in a period of videogame life cycles where things are expected, whether they're price drops, whether we're waiting for triple-A titles to come out. So to answer your question, we're only adapting to what the platforms are doing rather than what the economy is doing.

We think that by the end of this year, the market will be at least as big as it was last year, so $22 billion marketplace in America, a $22 billion marketplace and change in Europe. It's interesting — the PlayStation 3 is rumored 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. The Wii last year had Wii Fit, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and* Mario Kart*, and they were just exceptional titles. And then of course, there was Grand Theft Auto. So we're not comparing apples with apples.

We're acknowledging that the packages market is down. 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.

No one has a crystal ball, but to answer your question, 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.

For example, when we moved Bayonetta, that wasn't due to the economic situation. It was because it looked like we'd launch in November and in the West, you don't launch new IP at that busy time of year. So we moved it to what we think will be a quieter period in the new year. And I think that other companies are saying they're moving titles just because of the economy, and I think their development directors are quite delighted that's being used as a reason. (laughs)

Photo of Mike Hayes: JesseAngelo.com

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