Despite some exceptionally high review scores, sales of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars have been much less than expected.
Initial returns show that Chinatown Wars sold only about 200,000 units during the month of March. Jesse Divnich of the EEDAR group seems to believe it's the game's mature rating that has held it back from obtaining more impressive sales' figures.
The story continues on to say that mature titles have thrived on the PSP. Lifetime sales of previous GTA titles appearing on the PSP have each broken the 1 million units sold mark. However, given the 200,000 units sold in just one month for Chinatown Wars, there's a very good possibility lifetime sales will also break the 1 million mark.
Initial returns show that Chinatown Wars sold only about 200,000 units during the month of March. Jesse Divnich of the EEDAR group seems to believe it's the game's mature rating that has held it back from obtaining more impressive sales' figures.
"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," says Divnich.
Quality scores alone don't seem to be a major driver of sales on the DS, says Divnich -- he says many other DS titles, irrespective of their ESRB ratings, have scored 90 and above on Metacritic and have never broken 300,000 units in 3 months in North America.
"The results from Chinatown are an important benchmark for the industry, as it will be the best-performing mature rated title on the Nintendo DS to date coupled with one of the strongest mature-rated game brands," says Divnich.
Quality scores alone don't seem to be a major driver of sales on the DS, says Divnich -- he says many other DS titles, irrespective of their ESRB ratings, have scored 90 and above on Metacritic and have never broken 300,000 units in 3 months in North America.
"The results from Chinatown are an important benchmark for the industry, as it will be the best-performing mature rated title on the Nintendo DS to date coupled with one of the strongest mature-rated game brands," says Divnich.
The story continues on to say that mature titles have thrived on the PSP. Lifetime sales of previous GTA titles appearing on the PSP have each broken the 1 million units sold mark. However, given the 200,000 units sold in just one month for Chinatown Wars, there's a very good possibility lifetime sales will also break the 1 million mark.