14 DAY TRIAL // One of the big gambles of early 2009 is the release of an M-rated game, which contains strong language, references to drugs and anti social behavior, on the very child and family friendly Nintendo DS. Take Two and Rockstar took this gamble by creating and releasing Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, which is a very dark experience that can be played with a stylus.
One industry analyst, Jesse Divnich from EEDAR, believes that this was a mistake and that the game saw only moderate sales in March, the month when it was released. He stated that “It appears the industry may have been over-zealous with initial expectations on how GTA: Chinatown Wars would perform based upon the news it had received one of the highest quality scores for a Nintendo DS title.”
The title was well received by critics, who said that it captured the spirit of the GTA franchise while making good use of the gameplay mechanics offered by the Nintendo DS.
But Divnich believes that it will only sell about 200,000 copies on the Nintendo DS in the United States. This means that Take Two will make a small profit on the title but also that other publishers will be less interested in bringing Mature-rated videogames to the handheld.
The only previous outings of the GTA franchise on a portable gaming device were on the rival PlayStation Portable and the series did well on it, selling more than 1 million units of each of the games on it. The disparity between sales on the PSP and those on the DS are serving to highlight the big difference in demographics for the two gaming platforms.
Of course, all we have at the moment are estimations. The figures for March in North America will likely be released towards the end of the week and that's when we really get to know how successful GTA: Chinatown Wars has been.