GTA DS will have a long and successful shelf-life

The CEO of Take-Two Ben Feder says you should forget everything you know about how DS games sell.0

That’s because adult-focused games like GTA: Chinatown Wars prove there is a market for grown-up games on Nintendo platforms – and that Rockstar’s most recent release will be an evergreen seller like Brain Training.

His comments to MCV came just as Chinatown Wars jumped back into the UK All Formats Top 40.

Originally released at the end of March the handheld title was written off by some analysts after it failed to instantly reach the top of the charts like console brother GTA IV did when it arrived a year before.

But retailers should think of the game as a year-round staple for the DS, much like the PSP versions, said Feder.

DS titles take a longer time to sell, the good ones have long legs and we expect this game to behave in the same way. And it’s without doubt the best DS game ever made going by the total review scores.”

He added that 18-rated titles on DS and Wii are still a nascent market” that is steadily growing.

People make a mistake thinking that games on the format behave like other games, or that Chinatown would be like GTA IV, and arrive with a huge bang and all the units sold in 30 days. That’s not the way DS works – we expect Chinatown Wars to have a very long and successful shelf-life.”