DS NEWS
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars sales go up in smoke
DS-exclusive fails to crack top 20 titles for March |
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.
tony c | 17 April 2009
Lets not get too wound up about it. Chinatown Wars is not that great of a game. I don't even know what all the pre-release fuss was about. You run around, you shoot thngs. Real deep! Reviewers seem fascinated by games that allow you to kill lots of people. It sounds like wanna be rebels acting out some deep rooted anti social behavior.
Reggie Dunaway | 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.
Joined:
Apr 2009
Post count:
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Hmmm. Interesting. The received wisdom on Eurogamer is that the low GTA sales are explained by piracy, and my first thought was that this contradicts that, because why wouldn't Pokemon be pirated?
But... but...but....
I'm guessing the Pokemon market is younger kids, who don't have access to the piracy channels, whereas their older brothers *do*... so there may still be something in it after all.
And by the way... as a person who has owned a "current" gen machine for over 25 years, and aside from the C64 EVERY one has been a Nintendo... this is my first ever GTA... and I love it. It might not be "deep" but it is lots of fun, and doesn't take itself seriously AT ALL. I've laughed out loud soooo many times!
Joined:
Jul 2008
Post count:
393
I think in many ways, the controversy that Rockstar and the GTA franchise have revelled in (which has helped sell GTA games from the outset) has backfired in the case of the DS.
Lots of different folk own a DS, this is true, but a huge number of them are kids, and as soon as their parents hear "Grand Theft Auto", they'll be ultra-cautious. It will have helped on most every other platform, but Rockstar's deliberately built itself a reputation that not very compatible with the DS user base.
Win some, lose some.
James Hall | 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.
Arta | 17 April 2009
Just port it to the iPhone!
Joined:
May 2007
Post count:
387
I hope you're all eating your hats now, I told you Rockstar were pi$$ing in the wind with this one!
The sales figures don't surprise me in the slightest, the suggestions that piracy had an impact are overstated, there might be a marginally increased piracy problem with an 18/M rated title but it's minor.
Joined:
Oct 2007
Post count:
6
@ James Hall... When you knock retail margins, discounting, taxes, distribution, manufacturing costs and all the rest off, the publisher/ developer gets nothing like £25. Even if - as in the case of Rockstar - the publisher owns the developer - it might be clearing £8 or £9 from each copy at best. A game like GTA DS probably cost north of £3m to make and the same to advertise... So there's a long way to go before anyone sees a profit.
Re: piracy. It seems to me that a title like GTA DS might be expected to sell perhaps three or four times the numbers it has done. That then says that if piracy were to blame, 3x 90,000 copies have been made in the first month. Are there really 270,000 people out there with an R4 and the desire to copy GTA DS?
The blame is probably more to do with most of the target market already owning GTA IV on PS3 or 360. Having invested dozens of hours playing that version, those people probably don't feel the need to do the same with a handheld one too. Comparisons with GTA PSP don't make sense - that game released at a totally different point in the PSP's lifecycle, at a time when there were very few quality titles to play - and prior to GTA IV hitting the home consoles.
Jim78DS | 12 May 2009
I bought Cninatown wars today and i must admit i didn't think it could be that good. the game is amazing and shows that the DS can easily do m rated games. the sales will rise, it's a game for a different gamersgroup, not kids running to buy pokemon. the game is excellent, it will get the sales it deserves.
Joined:
May 2007
Post count:
838
I reckon this one will have quite a long tail in terms of sales. Are there any bundles out there for this with a DSi? If not, Nintendo seriously missed a trick. Then again, GTA probably isn't the image Nintendo is keen to promote for its new console.
