Nintendo "Frustrated" By Chinatown Wars Sales

[ChromeAlchemist]

Even though it's sold a lot, I'm a bit stumped it hasn't sold more either. I think I'm going down the standard route of "piracy" considering how brutally easy it was to get a flashcart.

A shame too, it's an awesome game.

What's so frustrating about it?

You put a mature demographic action/adventure game on a portable system that caters to kids and casual gamers.

Want to know where this game would've been more successful? WiiWare, PSN, Live Arcade.

I agree simply because it would have been harder to pirate. However I disagree with the whole kids and casual gamers part. If I were to refer to people who game quite a bit or an average amount "us", then in over 100 million DS consoles out there, how many of us own one? It's definitely not 0.

Auntie Pauline probably isn't going to be interested in Final Fantasy, Call of Duty, Sonic or Dragon Quest, all of which have sold over a million.

 

[MetaKnight19]

I haven't seen much advertising for Chinatown Wars, about 1 advert on TV and a poster in my local GAME store. Besides I'm not really a GTA fan

 

[Aardvark Soup]

The major problem with this game is that a high percentage of its audience owns a flash card. Of course GTA's lackluster sales can't solely be placed on that. I also get the idea that a lot of GTA-fans already own one or more console entry of the franchise and incorrectly think this installment is inferior because of the top-down perspective.

 

[joshthor]

the problem i think is the ds is essentially a childs system. if i got a handheld gaming system it would be the psp. alas, i hate handhelds, ill stick with my ipod touch for on the go entertainment

 

[Danpascooch]

Lack of marketing MY ASS!

I saw more commercials for that piece of shit title than any other game for at least 2 months.

Three lessons to learn:

1.) Action/shooter/adultcontent games will generally not do well on a gameboy
2.) Games that suck will generally not do well on the gameboy
3.) If you don't get your heads out of your asses, you won't be able to sell the amount of games you want for the gameboy.
4.) Screw you.

 

[AceDiamond]

Even though it's sold a lot, I'm a bit stumped it hasn't sold more either. I think I'm going down the standard route of "piracy" considering how brutally easy it was to get a flashcart.

A shame too, it's an awesome game.

What's so frustrating about it?

You put a mature demographic action/adventure game on a portable system that caters to kids and casual gamers.

Want to know where this game would've been more successful? WiiWare, PSN, Live Arcade.

I agree simply because it would have been harder to pirate. However I disagree with the whole kids and casual gamers part. If I were to refer to people who game quite a bit or an average amount "us", then in over 100 million DS consoles out there, how many of us own one? It's definitely not 0.

Auntie Pauline probably isn't going to be interested in Final Fantasy, Call of Duty, Sonic or Dragon Quest, all of which have sold over a million.

To add to this, it's also very narrow-minded for people to claim that games like Advance Wars, Mario Bros., Scribblenauts, etc. don't appeal to a mature audience as well. I think the problem is ever since the whole "casual vs. hardcore" nonsense started, some gamers have gotten a "with us or against us" mentality.

 

[Echolocating]

If they would have put sudoku on it, it would have sold millions.

 

[Torque669]

Lack of marketing support? Bullshit. I saw enough ads of chinatown wars. It's quite obvious that the flashcards are the real problem here.

Yeah, So many ads on it came through the radio when I was last in the car was unbeleiveable. Maybe it didnt sell because the advert is terrible. "Build a Criminal Empire, Drive like a sociopath, All the things which make america great". If that is your marketing strategy then they really do have no brain.

 

[Tharticus]

Nintendo DS is assumed to be a kiddy thing, so don't be frustrated at the typical user who assumes.

It's really sad. Even some people say that the new Mario and Luigi is a "kiddy" game.

 

[Terramax]

"It's frustrating, quite frankly," Dunaway, the executive vice president of sales and marketing at Nintendo of America, before stating "f**k it! Who cares? We're Nintendo. We'll just make another Mario game to make up the sales figures." before returning to his house made of solid gold, bought through the sales of Wii consoles.

 

[chronobreak]

Maybe GTA is just getting stale? It's not the cash cow it was when Vice City came out. GTAIV was mediocre in a lot of peoples minds, and I think there is a large number of gamers that are ready to move on from the series. Every game is the same, even though this one had a top-down perspective like the earlier titles, but people are getting tired of "Go here, shoot this, escort him, repeat". It's time to breathe some new life back into the series, and it isn't going to happen by getting your player a haircut or having an in-game internet/cell phone system.

I don't see it as a mature title, myself. There's nothing mature about selling drugs and vehicular homicide.

 

[firefox3d]

I've always considered myself the every-man of gamers. I tend to be with the majority, not because I follow the crowd, but because I tend to share the same opinions as the majority of my fellow gamers. My opinion on China Town Wars is that it kinda offends my intelligence to play it. When I heard about the drug dealing aspect I actually thought it was a joke. It looks very cartoony, like it's made for kids. I'm not an idiot about the ESRB rating system, so I know it's not meant for them, but you and I both know that kids wind up playing games made for adults all the time anyway.

Without going too much further with my "think of the children" rant, the graphics are appealing to younger more impressionable players. You can't argue that.

Ok, now that I'd said that, my reason for not buying the game is because I gave up on the DS a long time ago. The only games that I ever cared about on DS were Advance Wars, Castlevania, and Fire Emblem. All three have gone in directions recently that for lack of a better description, suck. Currently I'm selling my DS because the only games that I felt were worth playing no longer appeal to me. Compare that with shovelware by the truckload that come in each month, and it baffles me that Nintendo can't figure out why this game didn't sell at all.

There aren't enough good reasons for mature players to own a DS, and another -sigh- GTA isn't gonna do the trick either.

 

[Yukinari]

A bundle, expansion on this Hanheld series for the DS, or something to help advertise it would help sales, right now, not even i would buy it.

 

[Doug]

Lack of marketing support? Bullshit. I saw enough ads of chinatown wars. It's quite obvious that the flashcards are the real problem here.

I disagree. Its the DS's gimmicky controls that are the problem. Its an unnecessary fustration to have to switch back and forth between the buttons and the touch pad.

Well, that and most people probably assumed it was a 'meh' GTA version; after all, the 3D version is far better than the 2.5D one.

 

[Doug]

Maybe GTA is just getting stale? It's not the cash cow it was when Vice City came out. GTAIV was mediocre in a lot of peoples minds, and I think there is a large number of gamers that are ready to move on from the series. Every game is the same, even though this one had a top-down perspective like the earlier titles, but people are getting tired of "Go here, shoot this, escort him, repeat". It's time to breathe some new life back into the series, and it isn't going to happen by getting your player a haircut or having an in-game internet/cell phone system.

I don't see it as a mature title, myself. There's nothing mature about selling drugs and vehicular homicide.

Honestly, I didn't think GTA IV was medicore, but I seem to be in a minority; its cool to hate on GTA IV, apparently.

 

[KSarty]

I've seen a shitload of ads for this game, to the point that I was actually hoping it would tank. Personally I think it is an attempt of mixing two separate audiences without finding the middle ground. Maybe most people who are interested in GTA are not interested in the DS and don't have one, and the typical DS owner isn't interested in GTA. So the overlapping audience is very small, hence low sales.

 

[Russian_Assassin]

I think the top down view is the thing to blame here. Besides, you can play in the same city in HD graphics in IV!

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

Maybe the sales arent high because the game was a piece of crap? Sure it had some new innovative features and cool thing but to quote Yahtzee here "you can sprinkle diamonds over a turd and it'll still be a turd just hard to produce".

 

[thisisyournamenow]

why buy china town wars when you have GTA4 and all the DLC just saying

(i have a DSi i didn't when this came out i might buy it lol)

 

[falcon1985]

I should probably point out that the PSP version of Chinatown Wars has been out since October and has yet to sell 100,000 units (not counting PSN).

I checked the current sales of the DS Chinatown Wars on VGChartz.com, and its currently at around 800k sold. In terms of an M-rated video game on a handheld system that normally doesn't have M-rated games, that's pretty good. Not exactly a breakout hit, but I'm willing to bet Rockstar made a good profit from it. I'm guessing one of the reasons why sales were initially so slow has to do with the nature of the game itself. It's a pretty radical departure from the standard 3D GTA games, so it's not hard to imagine why so many were reluctant to take a chance with it. That could also explain why the PSP version is selling so poorly, since the "Stories" GTA games have sold millions on the system.

I guess here lies the problem to a certain extent. This is the first reference to the PSP version i've seen. Couple that with maybe 2 sightings of advertisement for the DS version and i can see why it didn't sell as well as was hoped.

PS. I live in The Netherlands, so i don't know how the advertisement is in other countries.