Gaming Random Thoughts

Madworld's sales on Wii in the US in its' first month of release was 60,000. SEGA says they're pleased, but those along with House Of The Dead: Overkill (45,000) look like weak sales.

What is even weaker is the sales of GTA: Chinatown Wars on DS. It sold 90,000. Those are horrid numbers for the GTA franchise. Especially considering it's riding on the success of GTA IV, and unlike the PSP games, apparently Rockstar actually put effort into these ones.
(Apr. 17, 2009  10:00 PM)To Wrote: What is even weaker is the sales of GTA: Chinatown Wars on DS. It sold 90,000. Those are horrid numbers for the GTA franchise. Especially considering it's riding on the success of GTA IV, and unlike the PSP games, apparently Rockstar actually put effort into these ones.

Whoa Gasp
To put this into perspective. The first PSP GTA game, Liberty City Stories, nearly sold double (according to VGChartz) in its' first week of release, then the DS games 3 week total. I don't need to tell you that the PSP's install base was much smaller at the time then the DS currently.
(Apr. 17, 2009  10:00 PM)To Wrote: Madworld's sales on Wii in the US in its' first month of release was 60,000. SEGA says they're pleased, but those along with House Of The Dead: Overkill (45,000) look like weak sales.

What is even weaker is the sales of GTA: Chinatown Wars on DS. It sold 90,000. Those are horrid numbers for the GTA franchise. Especially considering it's riding on the success of GTA IV, and unlike the PSP games, apparently Rockstar actually put effort into these ones.

wow I'm dissappointed in Madworld. and Yeah I read about China town wars which was surprising too, still the same article compared it to the ltd of the psp games which is hardly fair. I'd like to think it will sell well via word of mouth. the music in the commercial was ill

RE5 did killer with 900,000 sold
i do not understand why GTA china wars is selling bad?
I bought a copy! Clearly I was one of the few. lmao

Honestly though I'm willing to bet this game is going to be a slow burn in terms of sales. Like Blue said, I think the word of mouth on how good the game is will help it pick up.

Also didn't it release really late in the month? If so that's probably another reason for the low numbers.
ChinaTown Wars was out for 19 days and sold around 89,000 to 90,000. Liberty City Stories sold nearly twice that 19 day total in one week (VG Chartz has something like 160,000 for Week One in North America). That's abysmal (for Chinatown Wars) when you think about the install base size differences. I realize the game is top down, that probably hurt it, because GTA never really was mainstream until they went Sandbox third person.

Sony (I believe it was either Koller, Tretton, or Reaves, likely Reaves he always runs his mouth) said GTA won't have the same impact on the DS as it would have had they made another PSP game. People ragged on him to no end. It looks like he was right.

And I have to agree with him. Whenever you go into a regular store (ie not EB Games/Gamestop, since they actually carry niche DS games from Atlus, Ignition, NIS America, etc.) and look at DS games, you're confronted with 27 gems like Petz Hamster, Imagine Rockstar, etc. Another 20 being various Nintendo first party releases. And like 10 non casual, non shovelware (hi Chicken Shoot DS!) games. It's daunting to get space and successfully launch a title when the retail space is cluttered like that. The same goes for the Wii. Those platforms are very hostile in those regards. This likely hurt Madworld as well.

And I'm sure piracy hurt it bad too. But with the 35 million DS's in the US piracy shouldn't have hurt the game to these levels. No doubt it will have legs. All GTA games have legs. Just I find it hard to believe it will surpass the totals of even the lowest selling GTA PSP games' total (3 million).
This was being discussed on the Chinatown Wars thread on SA, it doesn't help that the DS has such a large amount of piracy going on.

Chinatown wars sold around 90,000 actual copies. I wonder how many people pirated the game. The DSi blocks certain flashcards, but some still work.

It's hard to expect games to do well when they're so easily downloaded.
Rhythm heaven was online over a week before it hit stores, Some games come with copy protection so they don't work if played on a flash cart or as a ROM, within a few hours, there are codes to break through that.
Again though. There are 35 million DS's in the US. That install base is crazy big for it to do those weak numbers. The PSP has massive piracy issues too yet in the first three weeks of release Vice City Stories was able to push past 100,000 units in the US (according to VGChartz). That's with a smaller install base, and is riddled with piracy.
I think a large number of those DS' in the US are gonna be kids. Over here at least, anyone old enough to be playing Chinatown Wars is gonna know a little about pirating. You say that there are enough DS that it shouldn't have that much effect but what if the majority of those belong to kids or teens that aren't interested in stuff like that? It seems that an interest in GTA and an interest in pirating might go well together......
has anyone at all played any games from the dragonquest series?
i remember playing one on the ds. i didnt like it so i deleted it.
There is a DS version of that game. I was looking into getting it.
I recently beat Broken Sword DS.
It was a pretty fantastic point-and-click.
a good solid 8 hours of gameplay.
(Apr. 18, 2009  2:20 PM)Crimson Wrote: Chinatown wars sold around 90,000 actual copies. I wonder how many people pirated the game. The DSi blocks certain flashcards, but some still work.

I don't think I can remember anyone who actually HAS a DSi yet, on a constant basis I see people using DS lites and hardly ever DS fats, however I've seen a few parents buying their kids a DSi or one for themself sometimes so I'm thinking it's in no way a compulsary upgrade YET so it may be likely that people would pirate the game which would reduce sales, I'm wondering if this is a similar trend with other recent games because that would indicate that piracy could be the reason.
Any Canadian who wants Resistance Retribution should check out Wal*Mart. Apparently they're already selling it for $25.
THIS is surprisingly addictive.

http://www.intuitiongames.com/effing-hail/
(Apr. 18, 2009  2:28 PM)To Wrote: Again though. There are 35 million DS's in the US. That install base is crazy big for it to do those weak numbers. The PSP has massive piracy issues too yet in the first three weeks of release Vice City Stories was able to push past 100,000 units in the US (according to VGChartz). That's with a smaller install base, and is riddled with piracy.

You also have to remember though, Libery City Stories basically LETS people pirate their PSPs due to it having old firmware on the UMD or some carp like that. So a bunch of people would buy it just for that too.
I'm playing Tekken: Dark resurrection at the moment and trying to do the storyline for them all and I have to say, Steve is the worst character in the game as he is the only one that doesn't kick, I've been trying to do the last person for a while now.
(Apr. 19, 2009  9:02 AM)Baronrana Wrote: You also have to remember though, Libery City Stories basically LETS people pirate their PSPs due to it having old firmware on the UMD or some carp like that. So a bunch of people would buy it just for that too.

Nobody does that anymore, there aren't very many unpatched versions and everyone uses pandora's battery now. I won't go into details on how to do it, but basically I'm saying that's not why people buy it really...
(Apr. 19, 2009  9:02 AM)Baronrana Wrote: You also have to remember though, Libery City Stories basically LETS people pirate their PSPs due to it having old firmware on the UMD or some carp like that. So a bunch of people would buy it just for that too.

Yet you quote me saying that Vice City Stories outsold Chinatown Wars in its first three weeks. Vice City Stories didn't have any kind of backdoor hack. Tongue_out_wink

And as Pikachao said, the Liberty City hack hasn't been a factor since a few months after its' release.
yeah i know. jeez you guys don't have to gangbang me Unhappy

lol. so i definitely regret buying my ps3
(Apr. 20, 2009  4:10 AM)Baronrana Wrote: yeah i know. jeez you guys don't have to gangbang me Unhappy

lol. so i definitely regret buying my ps3

didn't you pay for it with like arrowheads and bottlecaps