GTA: Chinatown Wars sales a 'disappointment'
Mature handheld game sells under 90,000 units, analysts slash full-year expectations for DS title
Rockstar and Take-Two's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars sold under 89,000 units during March in the US, according to the latest investor note from Cowan and Company.
The firm had originally suggested the game could sell as many as 2 million units in if first year of sale in the US, but has now slashed forecasts to just 500,000 units.
"Despite a strong critical reception, Take-Two's GTA: Chinatown Wars sold a very disappointing 89,000 units in March, well below our more recent 200-250,000 estimate and far below the 400-450,000 we thought the title might sell upon its release," wrote Doug Creutz.
Although sales did not meet expectations, Cowan suggested it was an indication of the difficulties third-party publishers face in the Nintendo market, and not due to the quality of the title.
"Take-Two exported their most valuable IP onto the most widely distributed gaming platform, and created the most highly-rated title in the history of that platform," detailed Creutz. "We knew there were some uphill challenges due to the demographics of the platform, but believed there were enough core gamers/adults owning a DS that the title could still perform very well.
"However, either the demographics are more challenging than we thought, or core gamers did not view the title as an essential purchase due to the nature of the platform.
"We believe the experiment was a worthwhile one for Take-Two, and still expect the title to be profitable (though likely marginally so). However, the disappointing first month sales reinforce our view that achieving meaningful success on Nintendo platforms remains a very difficult proposition for third party publishers," he added.
US sales results from The NPD Group last night revealed that March software sales for the US were down 17 per cent to USD 792.83 million, comared to USD 952.14 million for the same period in 2008.
Maybe the game will pick up pace later on. Lets see.
I'd like to see the sales pattern in this period. Perhaps people buy less games on portables and more on home consoles and PC??
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Jim Webb on 17th April 2009 1:41pm
Did Chinatown Wars get as much or comparable spots and exposure as the home console ones got? (I'd like to know)
That, and I think it has less to do with the demographics and more with the platform itself. GTA might just not be the game for portables, esp. when you have a compelling home console alternative experience.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Samer Abbas on 17th April 2009 3:20pm
Ironically enough, I do believe that GTA: CW on DS has sold similarly to the first month as GTA: VCS did on PSP. I don't recall it being labeled a failure upon release.
I've heard complaints about piracy in this industry for the best part of 30 years. Given that we pride ourselves on being at the cutting edge of technology, isn't it about time we found a technical solution to this problem and put an end to it once and for all?
The faster we translate the audience to a totally digital download model the better. I note that below this story sits a link to 'Lost and Damned hits 1m sales' and another to 'GTA IV add-on sells 323,000 in two weeks in US' - there lies the future!
The most effective way to combat this is to fight fire with fire and confuse the torrents and usergroups with tons of fake ISO's, ROMs and builds in the build up to release, creating confusion and distrust of what's being downloaded.
But yeah, effective digital DRM and it'll be much better.
Do agree that more hard-core DS titles are likely to suffer from more piracy - pretty much the same reason PSP software sales are generally so poor (piracy is even worse).
I'm currently playing Chinatown Wars - and its an amazing game.