The Nintendo DS has a lot of the same basic "problems" the Wii does-- loads of shovelware, not a lot of games in the most popular next-gen genres, little marketing for individual third-party titles-- but nobody really complains about this too much. They might start depending on the sales figures we'll see for Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars when the NPD figures for March hit later this week.
There's such a major question market hanging over the game's performance that major analysts who've tried for DS predictions are coming up with wildly different estimates. Webush-Morgan Securities games industry analyst Michael Pachter is expecting a big 450,000 units sold based on wide DS penetration, high review scores, and the enduring popularity of GTA. EEDAR's Jesse Divnich is expecting sales around 200,000 copies and for the title to be eventually profitable but not a major hit for Take Two, simply based on a disinterest in M-rated titles from most Nintendo DS owners.
This week's NPD numbers will also give us the first hard number indication of roughly how well MadWorld sold, too. This Thursday is going to make a lot of Nintendo fans either very happy or incredibly sad.
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