14 DAY TRIAL // When Chinatown Wars, the Grand Theft Auto-themed game for the Nintendo DS, was released way back in March, analysts were saying that the game would be considered a flop if it only managed to sell 200,000 units in its first month on the shelves. Well, GTA: Chinatown Wars has not managed to reach that figure in two months. It has until now sold about 163,000 units in the United States, where figures from the NPD Group for April and March are available.
Gamasutra has data from the NPD, showing that GTA: Chinatown Wars sits at number 18 in the all format top 20 chart for the United States, selling 74,000 units in April. The game managed to sell 89,000 copies in its first month on sales, March, which suggests that it could continue selling well for quite some time, making it a sort of a sleeper hit. Still, the good performance for April might be due to the fact that the price of the game was dropped by some retailers.
The 163,000 units sold for the game that comes with the Grand Theft Auto name attached to it must be pretty disappointing for developer Rockstar, which probably hoped to have a success similar to the GTA games released on the PlayStation Portable handheld.
The low sales might be a sign that the Nintendo DS platform is not yet ready to support more mature videogames, mainly due to the age of the players it attracts and due to the perceived complexity of GTA games. So, either Rockstar creates a GTA racing game with power ups and drive by shooting or sticks with designing videogames for the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.
Meanwhile, Rockstar is pushing along the development of the franchise, getting ready to release the second piece of DLC for Grand Theft Auto IV. Gamers will probably see more details about it come along at the E3 trade show.