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I feel like this was a great example of a self-defeating concept. Gamers constantly complain that Nintendo's consoles and concepts are too kiddy, and that core gamers avoid them because of that label. Then, as Yahtzee proves with his opening statements in his Mad World review, when they do break the mold and work against the label, they continue to complain. So they don't want exclusive adult-only titles on the Wii or DS, but they still want them... Paradoxical expectations aside, the reason GTA:CW didn't do well is because the core gamers aren't among the many that own the DS. That means games like these won't begin to sell well. The problem is they easily could, if more titles of this sort were released on the DS. Gamers usually need more than a single "killer app" to be sold on a console (especially in the low-income overview of our current economic outlook), so Chinatown Wars couldn't sell non-DS owners on the DS. If more titles of the sort came out, then more core gamers will have the DS. The problem is several need to show up at once. Because of poor sales as it stands now, though, there's little marketable incentive to continue with the market. If the market grows, though, so will the capital. | |
The thing is, the Nintendo core fanbase doesn't play GTA, they play Mario and Zelda. | |
This. The majority of DS owners are under 18. Hell, half the ones i know are under 12. | |
What I take from this, is that the DS seems to have a lot of hardcore gamers on it, but they are very different than the GTA buying crowd. I mean the fact that the DS was able to support not one but two Etrian Odyssey's says that it's more than just a casual gamer's platform. But that being said, people who love Etrian Odyssey and Dragon Quest V remakes are not the same people who necessarily are interested in the GTA series. I guess it just shows how dangerous it is to use catchall terms like hardcore when you're trying to define a potential sales audience. Granted, I'm not saying Rockstar actually did that. | |
I guess I'm the exact opposite of what all the commenters here are talking about. I have all the systems, grew up on nintendo but tend to drift towards other types of games these days. Absolutely love the GTA franchise, played em all (aside from those horrible PSP ports) from the very first one. I plan on getting this game, it's just a matter of priorities right now. I make decent money, but I'm waiting just a little bit longer to pick this up. Game seems amazing, and give it time, it'll start making some sales, I'm sure. I can imagine one of the things keeping people so on the fence about this one is the fact that most GTA players these days never played, or just plain didn't like, the old 2-d style. But who knows. Either way, I agree that it is disappointing. | |
i was going to say something, but you guys summed it up pretty well | |
I blame Yahtzee's review. Stoped me form buying the game. | |
I reject the assertion that Core gamers do not own the nintendo DS, My friends and I all have a Nintendo DS and we still consider ourselves core gamers. Rather, Nintendo doesn't need to fight against the label but go with it by releasing kid friendly games that anyone's little brother or sister can play, but they also need to put a deeper element in it for perfectionist gamers and layer several challenges underneath the primary goal to make most of the 'Core gamers' here scream in frustration as they end up getting owned by a little kid's game. | |
That is, I think only half of the story. Like the Wii, the DS seems to have tapped into the new "casual gaming" market. Old-school board games, retro arcade games, that brain training one plus all its cousins. Some of the older folk I know have a DS themselves, and they arent in the slightest bit interested in playing games like GTA. | |
Completely off topic, but would saying it "tanks badly" mean that it fails to draw aggro or that it draws aggro and dies? | |
At least attempt to support your statements with facts, this is the escapist after all. | |
I guess I don't fall under "Nintendo core fanbase," but I love both Zelda and GTA.
Smartass... | |
I think it means in the way you tank a test, or Epic Fail | |
That's exactly what I was wondering about. There are a lot of "hardcore" games on the DS... just a different kind of hardcore, apparently. I'm floored by this result. With all the critical acclaim I just assumed it was selling well. I bought it and I'm loving it, so don't blame me, Rockstar! D:
He did. Anecdotal evidence is still evidence. | |
True. However it does not fully back up such a sweeping statement. If he had proved survey results on the other hand... | |
I'd say piracy is to blame for this, since most of this game's target audience has a R4. If you happen to belong to them, you should be ashamed. | |
This is expected (from me anyway) I never had much hope for this game. | |
How did Nintendo not see this coming? It's the only game on the DS of its type, and DS owners have proved time and time again that they aren't interested in this sort of game. | |
This comment Fails. On Topic: I love my DS and im 23 years old. i own all the Pokemon games, as well as some of the other games like Trama Center, Brain Age, etc. The DS is geared toward the casual gamers because its easy to pick up and play. Games like GTA are very complicated. People that own the DS dont like to think while they play. My girlfriend and I enjoy playing Mario Kart on plane rides and buses. The DS is a great handheld. Just wanted to add my 2 cents. | |
As a DS owner over the age of 18, I do intend on buying GTA:China. But the reason I haven't bought it yet is two-fold. One, concern over the controls. The greatest failing of the DS is the lack of an analog stick, and any driving game really needs one. I don't go for the touch-screen control, I can't think of a single game I have where I actually use the touch screen... Ok, Kirby Squeak Squad, but they did it right. Yahtzee's review only reinforced the belief that the DS controls wouldn't work well with this style of game. The second reason I haven't picked it up, DS games are overpriced in my opinion. Yes there are the rare few, mostly Squenix titles, which are such a great fraking game I'd pay twice what they ask. FFTacticsA2 has me logged at over 140hrs and I still have a third of the game ahead of me. But most DS games are too short for $35-40. I wait until they drop to a price I'd consider worthwhile. For Chinatown Wars, that's $30, and she's retailing at $40 right now. | |
Well, that stinks for RS, though I probably wouldn't have gotten this if I had a DS. GTA isn't my cup of tea. | |
I think it's just a lacking concept in general to put "hardcore" games on portable devices, especially the DS. I would say that GTA mainly targets 15-35 year old males, while it seems that almost everyone I've ever seen holding a DS is younger than 15, and those who are older and using it are casual gamers (aka GIRLS) who would not buy the game anyways. Also, while it sports a retro look that may appeal to fans of GTA 1-2, I don't think many of those people own a DS or play it frequently. Let's not forget that GTA 2 came out in 1999, when most DS Players hadn't even started elementary school. Putting a GTA game on the DS is like putting a Hannah Montana game on the PS3. That all said, it is a little discouraging that such a brand name/hardcore game like GTA could not break even 100k of sales. Such results will likely make developers sway away from making such games for the console and instead just keep publishing out casual games and child games. | |
Weird. Where I work, this game sells out quickly. And is in high demand. Like Rainchecks. Know where I work? At Toys R US! | |
Well, after renting it, I'm glad I didn't buy it. Its not fun to just drive around, and whipping out my stylus every single time I want to save is annoying. I'm fine with it for the occasional carjacking, but the safehouses could easily have used button controls. The action controls were perfect, though. For shooting and stuff. But its just not fun. You sell drugs for money that you rarely spend on anything but...more safehouses. | |
Yahtzee isn't really a reviewer. He's an entertainer. He's a professional troll, and I don't mean that as an insult because he's good at what he does. But when did you last see a good review from him?
Re-read what you just wrote and think about it for a second. Go on. I'll wait. You see the problem yet? Yeah. | |
*laughs* Fair point, thanks for that. What I meant was that the sales of other kinds of games illustrate that they're not interested in GTA. I guess I should have made that a bit clearer. | |
That's crap and you know it. How old are you, even? Because I'd say more than every other male in the university I go to has one. | |
Portal *returns to dark cave* | |
Exactly. I bet the fan boys see this game a living form of heracy. | |
I believe (apparently along with plenty of other people) that this is because most people who would buy a GTA game don't have Nintendo DS's. I know that's why I didn't get it. They're just two different audiences. It's mostly wasted effort to try to combine the two. Just work on the next GTA game for consoles and make some money for all your hard work! | |
To be honest, that seems the most likely to me. I believe that the people who most watch ZP also include a large population of GTA fans. Furthermore, after Yahtzee's positive review of Painkiller, the company called him up to say that sales of the game had tripled within...I think it was some matter of hours. He has an unsurprisinly large audience, and the comments section definetely doesn't do it justice. | |
I blame the fact that I didn't buy a DS. | |
... | |
Were the two lines of "..." really necessary? It made it sound like I was saying something crazy. And of course there will be some people like you who would buy the game, after all, it has to sell some copies. But the fact that it sold so poorly seems to attest to the fact that the amount of DS owners who will buy this game does not make up for the amount of GTA fans who can't buy the game because they don't have a DS. So yes it works for some people, but overall it's a bad idea. | |
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Extra Punctuation
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TERA Review
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Name Game
GTA: Chinatown Wars Sales Tank Badly
Despite being the highest-rated title in the history of the Nintendo DS, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars has suffered from "very disappointing" sales, leading analysts to cut the game's annual sales projections by as much as 75 percent.
Analysts including Jesse Divnich of the Electronic Entertainment Design and Research and Cowen and Company's Doug Creutz predicted earlier this week that the first Grand Theft Auto title for the Nintendo DS had sold 200,000 copies in March, a respectable figure but well below expectations and just barely enough to squeeze into the top ten DS titles for the month. The actual results were far worse than expected, however, as according to NPD numbers the game managed to sell only 89,000 copies.
Creutz said the "very disappointing" sales, which occurred despite the huge popularity of the Grand Theft Auto franchise and a flood of extremely positive reviews, were the result of the unique "challenges" posed by the DS platform rather than any inherent problems with the game itself. "Take-Two exported their most valuable IP onto the most widely distributed gaming platform and created the most highly-rated title in the history of that platform," he said. "We knew there were some uphill challenges due to the demographics of the platform, but believed there were enough core gamers/adults owning a DS that the title could still perform very well."
"However, either the demographics are more challenging than we thought, or core gamers did not view the title as an essential purchase due to the nature of the platform," he added.
Creutz said the surprisingly poor sales of Chinatown Wars had led him to drastically cut the game's first-year sales projections, from two million units down to only 500,000. "We believe the experiment was a worthwhile one for Take-Two and still expect the title to be profitable (though likely marginally so)," he noted. "However, the disappointing first month sales reinforce our view that achieving meaningful success on Nintendo platforms remains a very difficult proposition for third party publishers."
Souce: GamesIndustry
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