PAL Charts Week 29

[Bodhesatva]

With the continuing fall of GTA IV in the UK and both versions of GTA IV already being out of the NPD top 10 in the US, I think it's fair for me to say again (I said this some time ago) that GTA IV will not reach its predecessor's LTD sales, and likely will miss it by a fair margin.

This isn't because the hardcore aren't there: they are, as the game debuted at sales higher than those for GTA III, GTA:VC, or GTA:SA. The problem is that the legs have been cut out from beneath the title. In fact, I've noticed thsi trend with a good number of PS3/360 titles: the debuts are up to par compared to previous PS2/Xbox iterations, but the legs aren't there and the title ultimately ends up with lower LTD sales (MGS4 in Japan is a good example of this -- it's debut put it on par with MGS2/MGS3, but now the game will likely end up with 15-20% less sales than its predecessors there).

GTA had been a franchise on the rise; it's sales had gone up and up and up from GTA III to GTA:VC to GTA:SA. It is now likely a franchise in decline, or perhaps even steep decline, with sales of 3+ Million less than the last iteration.