We loved the mother[expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] out of Sega's recent mature pair of Wii titles, House of the Dead: Overkill and MadWorld -- unfortunately, the same can't be said for the game purchasing population of the world. The two games' sales were far from stellar, but Sega isn't ready to give up on developing family unfriendly titles for Nintendo's home console.

In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Sega MD of European development, Gary Dunn, explained that the company's outlook on its two grown-up outings is far from grim -- he even claimed that "House of the Dead: Overkill was a profitable title." He went on to explain, "Whilst MadWorld commercially didn't sell what we were expecting I wouldn't say it's game over for mature Wii titles from Sega." Hopefully the company's persistence will be rewarded, if only to ensure a few dozen sequels to Overkill. (Overkill 2: Superfluous Murder, Overkill 3: The Overkillinest, etc.)

Sega's MadWorld and House of the Dead: Overkill are currently being sold at $20 off at Amazon. It doesn't appear to be a flat-out price drop for the two games, which have sold ... well, that's up for interpretation. We've also noticed that MadWorld is currently $30 in-store at GameStop.

Remember: Purchasing these titles will get more M-rated games on Wii and further research into splicing wings on pigs.

Source - Amazon-MadWorld Price Drop [GoNintendo]
Source - MadWorld, Overkill $30 on Amazon [CAG]

Prepare thy selves, Twitter fiends, as @SEGA is giving away goodies as part of its #FreeStuffFriday. The items up for the taking are:

• MadWorld Wii decal set, soundtrack CD and poster signed by the PlatinumGames team.
• OutRun Online Arcade t-shirt (size large) and free game code.
• Bleach Kon plushie and Nintendo DS stylus.
• Nights: Journey of Dreams soundtrack CD sampler, wristband and a SEGA sweet.
• Football Manager "Gameplay > Polygons" t-shirt (size large) and a SEGA lip balm.
• A grow-your-own venus fly trap plant and a SEGA lip balm.

To win the items, Twitter users need to follow @SEGA, which will follow them in return. During Friday, the account will announce the package, along with a "special code phrase." The first follower to direct-message the phrase will win the pack. Sounds simple enough ... unless the "fail whale" shows up.

Analytics firm OTX Research seems to already be making a name for itself after announcing intentions last month to track game sales. Speaking at the LA Games Conference, OTX's Nick Williams explained the surprisingly weak connection between strong online awareness of a game versus actual, hard sales numbers, citing Sega's recently released MadWorld as a striking example.

Noting the game's top position among IGN.com's games with the "highest level of unique interest," MadWorld came in at a paltry number 41 using OTX's "GamePlan" metric, a system that measures "1,000 gamers on a weekly basis, tracking 400 games at any given time." This translates to a bleak eight percent of Wii owners having even heard of the title, much less purchasing it (that's .32 percent according to April's MadWorld sales data compared with the 20 million Wii owners in the US currently). Hmm, we wonder what that data would look like for Grand Theft Auto's recent foray onto Nintendo's massively popular handheld!

It took an awful lot of numbers right there to explain an idea we've all quietly agreed upon for so long now -- hype and marketing in the "hardcore" gaming world doesn't necessarily equal copies moving at retail. Now, if you'll excuse us, we'll be over here playing BlazBlue.

Steve Papoutsis, producer of Dead Space Extraction, isn't concerned about the disappointing sales of recent Mature-rated games on Nintendo platforms.

Talking to VG247 about MadWorld on the Wii and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the DS, Papoutsis said, "I think that's happening because of what people are looking to buy, I guess." In contrast, "I think with our game right now I think we're hitting on something that's really interesting and really fun, and we're hitting on the atmosphere and the visuals that people have started to associate with Dead Space." It's hard to believe that Grand Theft Auto just wasn't what people were "looking to buy," and an unexplainable not-really-rail-shooter is, but he could be on to something! Or he could have just decided not to tell VG247 how scared he really was.

Papoutsis also extolled the cooperative play found in Extraction: "I love the Wii, I love Nintendo. I love all the platforms, but I really want something that I can play co-operatively on the Wii with a friend that hits that sweet spot I think Dead Space: Extraction is in."

Reading a New York Times article about repetitive stress injuries caused by the Wii is like taking a little day trip to 2006. In those days, Wii puns had just started to get old, and everyone discovered that repeated activity, even while playing a video game, can sometimes lead to injury.

This particular article features an angle we hadn't heard before: it's actually worse for your arms if you don't swing with the proper zeal. According to the article: "... a flick of the wrist is often enough to return a serve or bowl a strike. As several doctors pointed out, that is the exact motion - concentrating the force of a swing in the muscles of the forearm - that can cause tennis elbow."

Who knew -- even as you were committing graphic violence against fake dudes in MadWorld, you were mutilating your own arm?

[Via MTV Multiplayer]

Call us crazy, but we always thought that the idea behind making games was to sell tons of copies. Not so for Sega, as it seems weirdly satisfied with MadWorld's lackluster sales, based on comments to Gamasutra. Debuting early in March, Platinum Games' over-the-top brawler managed to move 66,000 copies, despite generally positive reviews.

Sega's other M-rated title on Wii, House of the Dead: Overkill, also managed to have a sub-par debut, selling 45,000 copies during February. What does this say for The Conduit, the third of Sega's big games for Wii? Could Sega's gamble on the mature audience of Wii gamers been a poor move? All signs are pointing to "yes" right about now ... but Sega seems to disagree!

There are plenty of things to love about MadWorld. The over-the-top slapstick action, the hilarious commentators, and fun Blood Bath Challenges are just a few of the things we enjoy in Platinum Games' latest title. Well, deviantART user ebooze loves the game's main character Jack so much that he decided to make his own custom figurine, complete with detachable chainsaws of both the bloody and clean variety. Want!

[Via Go Nintendo]

We've kind of assumed that Sega's double shot of M-rated offerings on the Wii underperformed, because ... well, because it's the Wii. But if Sega of America VP Sean Ratcliffe is to be believed, we might just have sneered at MadWorld and House of the Dead: Overkill's numbers too soon.

Ratcliffe told VentureBeat, "House of the Dead has done very well and has absolutely met our expectations. The first set of data for MadWorld is very encouraging, as well." We know that Overkill only sold 45,000 units in February, but if that's good enough for Sega, it's just enough to allow us to keep the hope of an Overkill sequel alive in our hearts without feeling like cockeyed optimists.

During a recent interview with Gamasutra, Nintendo's Denise Kaigler spoke about a slew of subjects sensitive to the Nintendo loyal. Core gaming, third-party support, and the new DSi were just a few of the subjects Kaigler touched on. In regards to the core, Kaigler says that developing games for that audience is important for "everybody, the industry, certainly for Nintendo, but most of all, for consumers." She points to Zelda: Spirit Tracks as a game for that audience.

Moving on to third-party support, we're starting to see more and more third parties recognize Nintendo's platforms. Kaigler says that being able to offer that 150 million user base between the two systems is very enticing to those developers. But, she notes that Nintendo wants to impart its own success on the platform and show these developers how it has achieved success (see: characters with floating, circular hands in everything), which might tie into those poor sales figures for the recent original, mature games MadWorld and House of the Dead: Overkill.

Finally, no interview with a Nintendo exec can skip the company's latest handheld, the Nintendo DSi. Some folks (especially commenters on Joystiq) have felt the handheld doesn't improve enough over the DS Lite, especially for the price it's demanding. Kaigler, however, argues that the new handheld has plenty to offer, pointing out the DSi's popularity on Amazon and at GameStop through pre-order figures, as well as the one feature that we think too many people are overlooking: DSiWare.

Light on gameplay but heavy on murder the first trailer for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 got "world exclusive" status on this week's GameTrailers TV (after the break).

Showcasing the cycle of "smoke a cigarette, kill a dude, get killed yourself" in a MadWorld-esque aesthetic, we can't help but wish for actual gameplay footage from the game -- the first Bad Company 2 screen was madness! We'll expect to hear more from publisher EA and developer DICE as we near E3 2009 in June. More on murder, that is.

In a blog post titled MadWorld vs. The Wii Remote, Shigenori Nishikawa recommends gamers "flick" the controller rather than "flail" in order to get the best experience out of MadWorld. Nishikawa, the game's director, wrote the blog to detail the development process behind bringing the bloody MadWorld universe to the Nintendo Wii.

In order to maintain a consistent tempo between the on-screen action and the motions of the player, Platinum Games "adjusted the way" MadWorld detects swing strength. That means, gamers aren't required to "flail [their] arms around" to unlock maximum carnage. However, Nishikawa isn't stopping gamers from going crazy either, saying, "If you get into the Jack state of mind and want to swing for the fences, you are more than welcome to!" What else are you going to do with that discounted Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man you bought?

Wanted: Weapons of Fate executive producer, Pete Wanat, says Sega -- whom he has no current working connection to -- would need to sell "2-3 million units" to make a sizable profit on MadWorld. Wanat doesn't pull his punches during an interview with web show Invisible Walls, criticizing the Nintendo Wii's development process where spending more than "$350,000 to $500,000" on a game runs the risk of making little to no profit.

"[Nintendo was] getting their ass handed to them [last generation], trying to compete with hardcore gamers. So they said, 'We're not going to bother, we're going to find our niche audience.'" says Wanat. "[Nintendo] has succeeded overwhelmingly so. But do not expect the rest of the industry to get down on its knees and 'blow' Nintendo to make games for that system when you can no longer use it and the same porting mechanism [when creating multiplatform SKUs on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC]."

Now Nintendo fans, before you feverishly type a retort, Wanat wants to make it clear that the Wii is home to some "unbelievable experiences" (specifically calling Nintendo's first-party titles, "Awesome"). However, as a third-party developer, "cracking the code" and finding success on the platform doesn't allow a game to be ported to other systems without completely changing the game's unique features, like gesture-based controls. "You're really getting narrowed to that one, narrow market. And what sells there? Nintendo games." It seems Sega is already feeling that sting.

[Via Sega Nerds]