Tag Archives: John Clark

SEGA has defended PC gaming and claims that a reported 26 percent year-on-year decline does not represent the full picture.

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Sega’s UK managing director John Clark has gone on record with GI, saying he wants the company to “crack core gaming”.

It comes as the developer released hardcore games like House of the Dead: Overkill and Madworld earlier this year on the Wii with critical success, but sales on both were mediocre at best. Clark insists though they will persist and “have a go”.

“We’re prepared to have a go and try to be innovative, and we want to crack core gaming.  We’ve spent a lot of time thinking there must be a way to release mature, more adult content on the Wii format.

“House of the Dead performed really well. Was that because it was mature or because it was an arcade title? You might lean towards the SEGA IP and the affiliation with Nintendo, but we matured that up by bringing out House of the Dead Overkill, and made it more of a core game,” said Clark.

“At the same time we entered into an exciting partnership with Platinum Games, the first result of which was MadWorld – a fantastic, innovative, original game, no doubt about it.”

Find more through the link.

Alan Pritchard (MD of Sega Europe North ) and John Clark (UK sales director) have told MCV that they feel titles such as the 18 rated MadWorld and more adult themed games such as The Conduit can only server to broaden the Wii demographic.

“There have been some good hardcore Wii titles. Resident Evil 4 has done reasonable numbers; Red Steel has also performed really well. But since then, many publishers have migrated towards the more mass-market family titles, so perhaps there hasn’t been the array or depth of hardcore titles on Wii,” said Pritchard. “So there is definitely opportunity here.”

“More family friendly titles are being released on PlayStation and 360 as this is a growth area for these formats. Maybe with Wii there’s a reverse opportunity,” said Clarke.

“We’d like to maintain the success we’ve had on Nintendo formats. One way of achieving that is with new IP like The Conduit and MadWorld, and traditional Sega titles will continue to drive broader market success.”

MadWorld was recently given an 18-rating in the UK.

Full interview through the link.

By Mike Bowden