No one is saying PSP can't sell GTA. That's actually the point, that PSP too couldn't sell a lot of Chinatown Wars, so you can't blame DS or it's install base for the relatively poor sales (and then 800k and going can't be that bad).

The game flopped because it was an old game ported to another system. Bioshock only did a fraction of its sales on PS3 when it was ported from PC/360. Was it a bad game? no... it was a GOTY type game. Why did it have bad sales on the PS3? simply because it was released a year later. No one wants to buy games that were released over a year ago. (bar one or two exceptions)

@ OP - I wouldn't say it sold badly on either platform due to rockstar needing to put in a 'better effort', as you said.

This game almost got me back into the GTA series after a long absence. The problem this game has is that it targeted the same audience that GTA 1 and 2 did, which is much smaller than the audience GTA 3 and 4 found

Farmageddon said: No one is saying PSP can't sell GTA. That's actually the point, that PSP too couldn't sell a lot of Chinatown Wars, so you can't blame DS or it's install base for the relatively poor sales (and then 800k and going can't be that bad).

Actually you can and should blame the DS, it lacks the hardware to make a portable GTA that people want.

A portable GTA sold 5 million, it can work on portables. 

ECC said: frictionini said: Keep_the_change said: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars debbuted on DS with a "small" launch and therefore was named has a flop, it was DS's audience fault for such bad sales. The game is still selling at a low pace and is in the ~800k mark.   The PSP version launched a few weeks ago and it didn't managed to reach 40K yet. I guess the PSP's audience is what? Casual????   Or it is the game style, sky-camera that cutt is sales?   It's time to admit that this game had brilliant sales on the DS for what it is, Rockstar just could have done a better effort on bringing a proper 3D GTA experience for the DS owners. C.O.P The Recruit is an example that Rockstar can follow to create an open sandbox engine in the portable system.   or maybe a more logical understanding is that GTA chinawars is a flop...   don't praise the DS version just because the PSP version is floppier ROFL you're just making yourself look like an idiot IMO   flop game is flop period. COME ON!  i bet you were one of the the people screaming flop when everyone was making fun of the ds version. now that its really a flop on the so called hardcore handheld its the game? please!

ROFL.

 

Why the hell would someone other than the OP reply to my post that was only to make a correction about the OP post

 

I play my DS games, I play my PSP games.I don't care if that GTA would succeed or not but as I said,

Flop game is flop period.

 

 

 

I hope no other fanboy would mistake me for a fanboy again, please...

 

I don't understand why fanboys would defend this post ROFL

 

It's time to admit that this game had brilliant sales on the DS for what it is, Rockstar just could have done a better effort on bringing a proper 3D GTA experience for the DS owners.

 

 

I just can't believe it will sell the most copies on iPhone, wow.


On a less serious note it's probably because games do not sell on psp.. Okay, that was totally serious. But it's a hard truth.

RE4 sold way more on PS2 =)

Hand me down port really late, 360 exclusive chapters for GTA4, PS 'hardcore' fans aren't fans of GTA right now as they used to be. Or it could be PSP dieing, the western media sure did a number on the GO.

I'm still waiting while media go mad about sales of GTA:CW on PSP, like they did when DS version came out. Sadly, they won't, but who's gonna eat crow then?

The funny thing about how pathetic GTA:CW performed on PSP is the reaction of gaming media and community (or lack thereof). I'm not going to insist it flopped, since I wasn't expecting it'll perform that well without major overhaul, like full 3D view, for example. But a lot of people followed either not so smart media and so called analysts talk proclaiming the same overused idea of 'casual vs hardcore' dichotomy (and how pathetic DS is in 'hardcore' area, 'cos GTA:CW is an obvious flop on DS... sure) or very smart talk, smart enough to cater to target audience of gaming media, that mostly consists of teenage boys, who usually react pretty intense on all this 'casual vs hardcore' crap (in other words, cheap populism of gaming media).

According to their demographic hypothesis, GTA:CW on DS flopped because there's not enough people on the platform who're interested in 'hardcore' games like GTA, and the best place to look for such people is PSP. Obvious conclusion - GTA:CW should have sold better on PSP, but it didn't. In practice it appears that, a great majority of gamers intersted in buying GTA:CW are DS owners as well. Considering advantage of first release it's no-brainer that DS sold the most copies, but it still ruins the above-mentioned hypothesis that DS has no people interested in GTA. And practical outcome of GTA:CW sales on both platforms is... as media claimed that DS always need to prove something, in fact it did prove that even not having backlog of two uber-successful portable GTA games (thus likely to accumulate a majority of GTA fans), DS install base is so massive and diverse that it incorporates a whole bunch of gamers of different tastes, including PSP owners and GTA players.

Bottomline. GTA:CW sales isn't fail of either platform, plaltform holder or Rockstar Gamers, but it's an epic fail of gaming media, so called anaylsts and not so thoughtful audience, who behave like a flock of sheep, following media outlets.

A very simple rule: if a game sells poorly on a Nintendo's console, it's Nintendo's fault, or the console's fault... but if a game sells poorly on another console, it's the game's style or the game's quality fault...

Same thing with the wiimote: when a game is poorly designed, with controls badly implemented, many will say to you it's because the controller has "waggle issues", and can't even handle awesome games... but when a game on another console has control issues, no one will ever blame any dual analog controller: they'll just say the game is bad...

I'm gettin' used to that double standard, but that's not a reason to accept it... many critics and gaming "journalists" have a fanboyish agenda in mind, and very often, the "real" problem lies in that agenda and the cherrypicking which goes along with it, and not in the games quality or the games sales...

Cos' let's not forget: a "regular" game with 150k sales on DS or 300k sales on Wii may begin to make profits, while the same kind of sales on the HD consoles would indeed mean a bad flop for any "regular HD" title out there... here's a "real" double standard, one that curiously, many chose to forget...