Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars flops badly

A lesson learned the hard way: not because it’s got the “Grand Theft Auto” franchise sealed on it, it’s gonna sell like hot pancakes. Take Two had to swallow this bitter pill with the DS GTA title, Chinatown Wars. The results are in, and the analysts’ prognosis is not looking good. Bluntly, it’s “dying on the shelves”.

A lesson learned the hard way: not because it’s got the “Grand Theft Auto” franchise sealed on it, it’s gonna sell like hot pancakes. Take Two had to swallow this bitter pill with the DS GTA title, Chinatown Wars. The results are in, and the analysts’ prognosis is not looking good. Bluntly, it’s “dying on the shelves”.

Conservative estimates already had pretty low expectations for the game’s sales, but the actual numbers released were even worse. 88,704 is the grand number that Chinatown Wars was able to ring up in sales.

…eyowch, belly flop!

It is a surprise, yes, especially since not only does it have the GTA franchise seal, it was also very well received by critics, even scoring a stellar 94-points on Metacritic. So what happened? The DS children market happened.

It’s obviously a predominantly children market, and content as adult as GTA‘s obviously will not sit well with parents — which will then translate to sales not being well. And to think that this could have been that game to break the DS’ innocent, wholesome glass ceiling.

We’re guessing devs won’t be developing any adult-themed titles for Nintendo‘s handheld anytime soon, then.

• Koller wants new GTA for PSP, reacts to GTA4 360 DLC, Chinatown Wars on DS
• GTA: Chinatown Wars first DS game to get 18 rating from BBFC, has 168 minutes of cutscenes
• GTA: Chinatown Wars will be “far bigger” than GTA PSP games
  

Via Business Insider