April 17, 2009 3:01 P.M.

Is there a market for Mature-rated games on Nintendo platforms? Judging by the sales performance of the latest in the Grand Theft Auto series, perhaps not.

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GTA: Chinatown Wars, the first Grand Theft Auto game to be released on the DS, sold just 89,000 copies in the weeks following its March release. It's substantially under the predictions of industry analysts, who were expecting to see a total in the 200,000 to 400,000 range.

That's despite the ravings of critics, who've driven the game to an aggregate review score of 94% according to metacritic.com -- which makes it the highest rated Nintendo DS game ever released.

"We view the title's performance as...not due to any misexecution on Take-Two's part,", analyst Doug Creutz told Gamasutra. "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 said.

GTA: Chinatown Wars' disappointing performance is mirrored by Mature-rated Wii release MadWorld, which boasts a hard-edged, over-the-top graphical style, and sold a modest 66,000 copies last month. M-rated games are a rarity on Nintendo platforms compared to the PSP, PS3 or Xbox 360, and if the performance of this pair of excellent games is indicative of the state of the market in general, it's not difficult to see why.

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/new-gta-a-sales-flop/1306797