GTA: Chinatown Wars Sales Analysis Update - I Was Right

Not to tout my own horn or anything, but it looks like I was right about Chinatown Wars' sales.

Quick recap: the game sold slightly under 90,000 units in its first two weeks at retail and everyone from analysts to "game journalists" jumped right on the "third-party sales on DS/Wii" bandwagon. I cited two major reasons behind the game's "slow" start: people holding off on buying until the launch of the DSi, and DS games selling through word of mouth over a period of time. Turns out, I wasn't wrong.


Here as some nice quotes from Nintendo, Gamestop and Take Two concerning the two-week sales period:


First up is Nintendo's vice president of licensing, Steve Singer. Says the man in charge of third-party relations to MTV:

“‘Chinatown Wars’ is performing in line with AAA titles that have come to our platform like ‘Spore‘ or ‘Lego Star Wars,”

“Those games went on to have very different life-to-date sales numbers.”

Nintendo then points to the sales of Call of Duty 4 on DS...an amazing 500,000+ units sold life-to-date.



Next up is Denise Kaigler, Nintendo's VP of Corporate Affairs. Says Kaigler:

“Remember that many games for Nintendo DS have a nontraditional sales pattern. 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.”

And now, on to Alan Lewis, Take Two's VP of Corporate Communications, who had a whole lot to say about how T2 sees GTA's performance on DS:

"Chinatown Wars received critical acclaim and is the highest rated DS title of all time,

"In terms of performance, we think it is performing in line with other triple-A games on the platform.

"We are very confident in Chinatown Wars long-term potential for success," he said. "We think it will have a long life in the market.

“We have and we will continue to support the platform. We think the mature segment of the DS market is growing.

“We’re confident in the game, and we think it has long-term potential for success. We’re trying to pioneer mature games on the platform.”

Huh. Seems like Chinatown Wars didn't do so badly after all. I wonder what the retailers think.

Oh, here's what:

“‘GTA: Chinatown Wars’ is exceeding our expectations and illustrating the power of the franchise on a new platform. We’ve seen a solid lift in sales of ‘Chinatown Wars’ following the launch of the DSi and believe that the product will continue to enjoy a long life at our stores as the buzz around the new handheld gaming experience continues to grow.”

That's Chris Olivera, representative of Gamestop in this whole analytical mess, proving once again that most people outside of retail still don't know how the DS and Wii markets work, or have yet to come to terms with them.

For all their research and numbers and stats, analysts always seem to be the first ones to jump the gun when it comes to spreading wrong information. It's sad, really, because this kind of trolling does hurt the image of the companies involved.

I always think it's funny how we, as an industry, actually pay heed to the words of people who don't know the first thing about game development and the costs involved when it comes to talk of sales and performance. Do any of these analysts know how much it cost to develop and publish Chinatown Wars? Have any of them been observing sales patterns on the DS and Wii for the past two years? Do they know what T2's expectations for the games were?

Top-tier publishers like Take Two aren't stupid, and they don't need uninformed parties suggesting to them what to do. It's about time we learnt this. I'm just amazed we haven't already.