GTA on the Wii?

Dec 18, 2008 23:31 GMT  ·  By

Following a financial report which showed a disappointing fourth quarter loss, double that incurred in 2007, and a overall yearly profit of 97 million dollars, mostly derived from sales of Grand Theft Auto IV, Take Two is looking at 2009 as a difficult year, mainly because Rockstar's franchise will only see the release of the Nintendo DS bound Chinatown Wars. Still, the potential bright spot for the company in 2009 might be a closer collaboration with Nintendo, aimed at bringing more Take Two videogames to the Wii and the DS.

The company’s president, Ben Feder, emphasized the success of Carnival Games and then said that “We believe we'll continue to benefit from the growing install base of the Nintendo Wii. Our relationship with Nintendo has never been stronger,” before calling it a “great foundation on which to build.”

The Wii is seen as the most family oriented console of the big three on the market, and, until now, it has seen few videogames aimed at a mature audience. That's set to chance seeing how SEGA is publishing a “real shooter,” called The Conduit, for the platform. Based on its success, other developers could create more shooter and action titles for the Nintendo made home console.

With the Xbox 360 recently enhanced by the New Xbox Experience and with its reduced price, moving in to attract family audiences, the Wii might counterattack by trying to get the attention of hardcore players. Creating a complete GTA experience for the Wii could be interesting for a lot of players, especially taking into account the motion tracking capabilities of the Wiimote and Nunchuk.

Feder knows that there will be problems in translating the experience to Nintendo’s platform, as he declared that the company would probably seek to port “even some of the M-rated content that we think is much more appropriate for the 360 or the PS3... we have to look at the Wii as a viable platform, because we can't ignore that install base.” Hardcore game developers will probably have to restrict some of the videogames they produce in their quest to reach a bigger audience.