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Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars sales go up in smoke

DS-exclusive fails to crack top 20 titles for March

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars sales go up in smoke
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DS
| GTA: Chinatown Wars

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.

Tracy Erickson
Tracy Erickson
Manning our editorial outpost in America, Tracy comes with years of expertise at mashing a keyboard. When he's not out painting the town red, he jets across the home of the brave, covering press events under the Pocket Gamer banner.