Mario & Sonic for the Xmas win

Monday September 28, 2:32 PM Mario & Sonic for the Xmas win

Mario & Sonic have got the Christmas number one in the bag, says Sega. Hmm, we can think of a couple of software publishers that might just have an issue with that...

Fighting talk first, though, and Sega UK’s marketing director John Clarke is modest enough to recognise the challenge ahead even if he still reckons that Mazza and Sonic’s forthcoming Winter Olympic jaunt on Wii has the stuff to see off all challengers. That includes some very heavyweight contenders too, as he tells trademag MCV:

“There are three games that can be Christmas number one: Call of Duty, FIFA or Mario & Sonic. It’s as simple as that.”

“The price cuts on PS3 and 360 could make that a slightly larger challenge, and Modern Warfare 2 will be huge. Will it be bigger than the last Modern Warfare? I think it probably will be.”

“But we think we can do it because the last Mario & Sonic achieved a 30 per cent attach rate on Wii and on DS it got a seven per cent attach rate. And if we achieve even half of that, we’ll be in with a chance.”

Let’s do some maths, then – the Wii has a UK user-base of around 5.5 million, so a 30% attach rate would be 1.62 million, or 810K if the game only does half as well. Those are lifetime rather than weekly sales, of course, but it gives us an idea how many Sega thinks it needs to deliver in order to beat FIFA and MW2.

Well, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games looks ace and there’s little doubt it’ll do well. But as for Sega’s chart-conquering ambition, er, let’s just say that there was an audible snort when we told a competitor about it.

Copyright © 2009 Unlikely Hero Limited

No extra stories for Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games