Chinatown Wars sales in line with AAA titles

Nintendo claims that Rockstar’s commercially underperforming DS title, GTA Chinatown Wars, is selling in line” with other third-party AAA titles for the DS.

Before NPD offered its March sales figures for North America, analysts gave conflicting predictions on the outcome of the critically adored title.

EEDAR’s Jesse Divnich predicted that the title would sell around 200,000 for the month, claiming that such figures would suggest that attempting to release a major AAA title on the Nintendo DS, targeted at a mature demographic, carries significantly elevated risk.”

It is now believed that the title sold around 90,000 units across America in March, yet Nintendo of America’s Steve Singer didn’t carry such a bleak view. Chinatown Wars is performing in line with AAA titles that have come to our platform like Spore or Lego Star Wars,” Singer told games blog MTV Multiplayer.

Singer added that such games went on to have very different life-to-date sales numbers,” pointing to the DS edition of Call of Duty 4 as an example. CoD4 only managed 36,000 units in its first month, Singer said, yet has now sold half a million units.

Singer added that many titles released on Nintendo platforms ignore traditional sales curves (spike and fall), but instead gather momentum and sell through the months.

I think strategically, this is a very important game because it helps send the message that great M-rated content can come to the platform and will find a home,” he said.