House of the Dead: Overkill Sells 45K

The M-rated grindhouse film-inspired gore fest House of the Dead: Overkill has managed to make a modest bit of headway on the typically family-friendly Wii.

The light gun game from Sega and U.K.-based Headstrong Games sold 45K units during the month of February, NPD told Edge. The game launched February 10.

NPD analyst Anita Frazier said it landed around the 50th spot in the top-100 SKUs for the month in unit sales.

[Bnet343]

Ouch. That's what you get for making an M-rated title that no one knows about on Wii. I see them selling a little over 100k in total sales.

[II Necroplasm II]

True. But House of the Dead was born on the Arcade with the light guns and the Wiimote was a turn on for the series.

[Godmars290]

I saw the commercial almost every other break on a few shows. And it had tons of ads in magazines.

If anyones to blame for low sales, its all of the Wii gamer-base who have been begging for gamer-games.

[Panthers]

A VERY small percentage of the Wii gamer base was wanting that. Remember, you are thinking about gamers that own a Wii, not the other 90% of its userbase who get 2 games a year and window shop for games.

[Product]

Worldwide sales its approximately at 170,000 sales so far. I dont see that as a bad thing honestly.

[FarEastOrient]

Did that even cover the price of printing the disc?

[TheIneffableBob]

Small initial sales don't mean small lifetime sales. Unreal Tournament sold like 40,000 in its first month but went on to sell over a million worlwide. Crysis sold around 90,000 its first month but has now sold 2-3 million.

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

Unreal Tournament 3 was pirated over 14 millions times though...you have to realize.

It's the most pirated game in history.

[Godmars290]

Over three platforms of a very well recognized, popular, and as LeonSKennedy4Life says, pirated title.

Can't really see anything but trickle sales for HOD.

[TheIneffableBob]

Actually, Unreal Tournament 3 wasn't that popular. It only hit a couple thousand concurrent online players at its peak. The pirates, of which I highly doubt were 14 million large (where did you even get this number?), played it, hated it, and uninstalled it. Not even the cracked servers had a lot of players. It still went on to sell a million copies (across PC and PS3), though. Guess the majority played offline.

[Product]

yea actually if you know anything about unreal 3 you would know that most people dont pirate it and instead either just play the demo on the pc or have uninstalled the game like the above person said.

From a franchise perspective if you know the series at all you would know that most fans hate ut3 and either play 2004 or earlier...the real hardcore still play 99.

BTW i hate how Epic has put Gears in the first priority spot infront of this series.........unreal is so much better.

[Gr81]

W@W for wii opened at around that as well, it is now a million seller.

[Microsoft Xbox 360]

Because a million people were jipped into thinking it was like the PS3 and 360 counterpart.

[Gitaroo]

sad man, this is one of the best game I played on wii, even though its not very polished and glitchy. I don't think Madworld sell very well either.

[Avenged Sevenfold]

Wow, low sales.

[Mahr]

As much as I hate to say it, American sales are not the be-all, end all of the market.

The UK charts, for instance, tell a much happier story for the game. They don't actually provide information besides sales position, but they're still enlightening.

"Week 1= 10th (#3 Wii Chart)
Week 2= 9th (#3 Wii Chart)
Week 3= 16th (#3 Wii Chart)
Week 4= 24th (#5 Wii Chart)
Week 5= 20th (#4 Wii Chart)"

[Godmars290]

For all we know the total could be equal or even less of US numbers.

And by Wii chart, are you talking about a chart only tracking Wii titles, or a general chart?

@heroicjanitor below:
Wait, you mean that you were in the store, someone took the game off the counter after you paid for it, and the clerk made you pay for it again?

[Product]

yea europe loves this game from what ive noticed.......this game will do fine for what it is.

@ above Mahrs mean that a chart tracking just Wii games.

[Mahr]

"Still, actual numbers would be helpful. For all we know the total could be equal or even less of US numbers."

Could be, although given the size of the the UK market, I think it's fairly improbable that the numbers would turn out like that. Unfortunately, Chart-track doesn't provide that information either way. It's times like this I wish that VG Chartz weren't completely useless.

"And by Wii chart, are you talking about a chart only tracking Wii titles, or a general chart?"

Basically, the information is all from the same chart. The first week it was out, it was the tenth best-selling game in the UK on any platform and the third best-selling Wii game (discounting bundles), and so on.

For comparison purposes, it's been on the UK Charts longer and at a higher ranking than similar games, three of which eventually saw commercial success.

But if everyone wants to say the game is doomed based on one month in one region, well, that's their prerogative, I suppose.

[heroicjanitor]

Maybe then someone else will follow sega's example(maybe even nintendo, still holding out for a new Golden Sun:P) and start making quality games for it. I had to buy madworld twice today:( I bought it and left it down for a second and someone must have robbed it... I hadn't even left the store yet!!! F*cking scumbags but I bought it again... It's good but not 90 euros good...

[jkashuba07]

This game be wicked sick on the Wii with Zapper!

[TBaT]

Wow no wonder these types of games aren't made very often for the wii. They may be good, but most wii owners just want the shovelware that comes out every other day.

[snake-OO]

the simple fact is there are more casual gamers than hardcore gamers on the wii.

[Milky]

At the end of the day, its a rails shooter. Not as appealing as many of you think. MADWORLD will sell better (can't wait to buy it)