Despite enthusiastic reviews,
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars couldn't manage 90,000 copies in its first month out reports
Silicon Valley Insider. Only 88,704 copies have been sold since the game's March 17 release the outlet claims.
Not only did
Chinatown Wars fail to make the top 10 or 20 best-selling games for the month, it sold well below the most conservative of expectations. Estimates had pegged the DS game to rack up 200,000 in March sales, but obviously the game fell well short of that mark. Take-Two told Silicon Valley Insider that they remain optimistic about the game's long term prospects.
Poor sales could be evidence that DS gamers simply don't like M-rated fare. Of the 660,000-plus new DS and DSi owners in the US, just barely 1 out of every 10 snatched a copy of
Chinatown Wars. Instead, it was
Pokemon Platinum that had a cool reception at 805,000 copies.
The fortune cookie certainly favors PSP where gamers are more open to M-rated take-out. For reference, both
GTA: Vice City Stories and
GTA: Liberty City Stories sold over 2 million copies on PSP. First month sales of both titles on PSP were well above the underwhelming figure posted by
Chinatown Wars.
Anonymous | 15:09 - 17 April 2009
Just port it to the iPhone!
Anonymous | 15:07 - 17 April 2009
I wonder if so far, they have still made a profit on this game. If for example every copy sold cost £24.99, that is £2,216,712. Seems like a canny profit, I would imagine that would have been enough to easily break even. But then again, what do i know, I have no idea how much money was put in to making the game.
Anonymous | 05:45 - 17 April 2009
89,000? Is that a joke? What an abortion! From now on keep your handheld GTAs on PSP, Rockstar. Women, children, and elderly are not interested in your games.
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