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Forums - Nintendo - Take Two-Gamestop: GTA: Chinatown Wars sales are exceeding our expectations

EaglesEye379 on 17 April 2009

Well Take-Two slashed their projected sales for the game from 2m to 500k in the first year so cant be that good.

 

GTA: Chinatown Wars sales a 'disappointment'

Rockstar and Take-Two's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars sold under 89,000 units during March in the US, according to the latest investor note from Cowan and Company.

The firm had originally suggested the game could sell as many as 2 million units in if first year of sale in the US, but has now slashed forecasts to just 500,000 units.

"Despite a strong critical reception, Take-Two's GTA: Chinatown Wars sold a very disappointing 89,000 units in March, well below our more recent 200-250,000 estimate and far below the 400-450,000 we thought the title might sell upon its release," wrote Doug Creutz.

Although sales did not meet expectations, Cowan suggested it was an indication of the difficulties third-party publishers face in the Nintendo market, and not due to the quality of the title.

"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," detailed Creutz. "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.

"We believe the experiment was a worthwhile one for Take-Two, and still expect the title to be profitable (though likely marginally so). 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," he added.

US sales results from The NPD Group last night revealed that March software sales for the US weredown 17 per cent to USD 792.83 million, comared to USD 952.14 million for the same period in 2008.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/gta-chinatown-wars-sales-a-disappointment



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BMaker11 on 17 April 2009

So first it sold over 200k, then over 400k, then NPD came and said 89k......and in all of this, it's "met their expectations"?

Well, since nobody seems to know how much the game ACTUALLY sold, I'll just agree with T2 and call it a day. (Although I'm inclined to believe T2's "we're hoping for it to do better in the long run" means it pretty much flopped in the first month)



saicho on 17 April 2009
EaglesEye379 said:

Well Take-Two slashed their projected sales for the game from 2m to 500k in the first year so cant be that good.

 

GTA: Chinatown Wars sales a 'disappointment'

Rockstar and Take-Two's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars sold under 89,000 units during March in the US, according to the latest investor note from Cowan and Company.

The firm had originally suggested the game could sell as many as 2 million units in if first year of sale in the US, but has now slashed forecasts to just 500,000 units.

"Despite a strong critical reception, Take-Two's GTA: Chinatown Wars sold a very disappointing 89,000 units in March, well below our more recent 200-250,000 estimate and far below the 400-450,000 we thought the title might sell upon its release," wrote Doug Creutz.

Although sales did not meet expectations, Cowan suggested it was an indication of the difficulties third-party publishers face in the Nintendo market, and not due to the quality of the title.

"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," detailed Creutz. "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.

"We believe the experiment was a worthwhile one for Take-Two, and still expect the title to be profitable (though likely marginally so). 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," he added.

US sales results from The NPD Group last night revealed that March software sales for the US weredown 17 per cent to USD 792.83 million, comared to USD 952.14 million for the same period in 2008.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/gta-chinatown-wars-sales-a-disappointment

I don't think that was Take Two made the forcast. It's Cowan and Company.

 



MikeB predicts that the PS3 will sell about 140 million units by the end of 2016 and triple the amount of 360s in the long run.

Xen on 17 April 2009

Yeah, bullshit. You're grasping at straws to show that it isn't underwhelming. I'm sure they expected a shitload more.



GianCarmen on 17 April 2009

I just saw that Call of Duty 4 for the DS in its first month sold 36,00 units and so far has raked in sales of 500,000 units. Here is the quote from Denise Kaigler from Kotaku.com

"Remember that many games for Nintendo DS have a nontraditional sales pattern," said Denise Kaigler, Nintendo of America's vice president of corporate affairs. "The trend is toward ‘evergreen' games that sell well over an extended period of time instead of in a one-month spike. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Nintendo DS is a good example. In its first month (November 2007), it sold only 36,000. To date, it has sold through nearly 500,000. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is a great game that has received tremendous reviews. We expect that with continued backing, it will follow the same long-tail/evergreen sales route that other top sellers have taken."



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alfredofroylan on 17 April 2009

This thing was a big topic roday, I was expecting more buzz about KZ2

"Remember that many games for Nintendo DS have a nontraditional sales pattern," said Denise Kaigler, Nintendo of America's vice president of corporate affairs. "The trend is toward ‘evergreen' games that sell well over an extended period of time instead of in a one-month spike. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for Nintendo DS is a good example. In its first month (November 2007), it sold only 36,000. To date, it has sold through nearly 500,000. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is a great game that has received tremendous reviews. We expect that with continued backing, it will follow the same long-tail/evergreen sales route that other top sellers have taken."

http://kotaku.com/5216597/adult-gaming-on-the-ds-the-chinatown-conundrum



GianCarmen on 17 April 2009

I thought that Call of Duty 4 had bombed on the DS. Those are really good sales.



Mr Khan on 17 April 2009
MontanaHatchet said:
So basically, Take 2 is saying the same thing as many of the Nintendo fans on this site.

"It will have legs!"

A lot of developers for Nintendo platforms seem to be satisfied with sales that many of us view as bad, while high selling games like Mirror's Edge and Dead Space resulted in EA losing millions of dollars. Could the difference in budgets between the DS/Wii and the HD consoles be bigger than we thought?

I don't know. If it was bullshitting, you think it would be a lot easier to BS Dead Space's sales into something good than to BS Chinatown Wars into something good.

 

Though granted, they are different companies, but still...

 



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shams on 17 April 2009

When did Chinatown wars launch in March? My guess is you'll see significantly better sales for it in April (Easter, DSi) than for March - maybe 3-5x as much.



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dib8rman on 17 April 2009

Wow, so that means, that there could be a whole lot of games that VGC has just stopped tracking on the DS that could of broken the 500k~1mil or more mark, simply because of the DS's sales trend.

I guess it doesn't matter too much, and it would be way too much work to adjust all of them.

Wow, so the DS is a really strong platform for software then, much stronger than the PSP... maybe? Does the PSP share a similar trend to the DS?

Good quote.



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