AAA Pocket Play: Nintendo not worried about GTA’s ‘disappointing’ sales
Sourcelink: MTV Multiplayer Blog
So, Nintendo has heard what a few of you have pointed out: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars didn’t exactly sell gangbusters this past month on the DS.
However, Steve Singer, vice president of licensing and third party relations with Nintendo says that the numbers aren’t indicative of the long legs of most DS titles. “‘Chinatown Wars’ is performing in line with AAA titles that have come to our platform like ‘Spore‘ or ‘Lego Star Wars…games went on to have very different life-to-date sales numbers.” Another that was mentioned was Call of Duty 4, which sold 38,000 on DS in the first month, but has since sold 500K.
This is all kind of funny, since in the first week sources from GameStop were saying that the game was “Exceeding Expectations” in sales…
Brad’s Take: First off, there were numerous things about Chinatown Wars that was strange for a DS game. First, it was M-Rated on a system being sold to casuals and younger children. Secondly, there was only a fraction of the marketing being put behind it. Lastly, Nintendo wasn’t making a primary focus at all on any of its campaigns (in fact, at E3 08, it was only a footnote to a presentation that was only showcasing Animal Crossing: City Folk, Wii Sports Resort and (shudder) Wii Music.
Couple all of those things together and the sales figure: 89,000 unit sold. To me, that’s pretty damn good for a game that was an odd duckling on a platform that doesn’t welcome its type of game onto it.
And you know what? I’ll even buy that the game has longer legs and will very much sell a million units by year’s end. It will not dethrone the current champions of the hardware, however, but I can surely see that Chinatown Wars will very much make another hit on this system.
