The NPD numbers for March were just released and things don’t look good.  Not only did the industry as a whole drop 17%, but one of the highest profile releases for the month got shafted at retail.  GTA:CTW or Grand Theft Auto: China Town Wars, is currently the highest rated DS game according to game industry’s critics (hands down).  Its obviously gotten rave reviews and typically games that do well critically sell well.  Its console counterpart, GTA IV, broke release records and put gaming releases on the same scale as movie releases.  However, GTA:CTW failed to even crack the top 10.  That means, by default GTA couldn’t match the numbers put up by the number 10 release MLB 2K9 (which was only 205K copies).  Last year, around this time, GTA: IV was released and sold 8.5 million copies in less than 2 months.  What happened?

I’m not insinuating that CTW should have sold GTA:IV numbers, but to not make the top 10 during the off season is a shock to the DS and gaming community.  With an over 31.93 million player install base the DS is bound to have some hardcore players in there somewhere.  These sales figures (or lack thereof) bring up alot of major industry questions.

Are hardcore gamers not looking for a hardcore DS game?

Are portable gamers looking for something that isn’t too involved?

Does this prove that Nintendo can only sell 1st party titles?

Would a follow up to the the GTA: “Stories” games on the PSP been a better idea?

Is this the end of hardcore 3rd party titles for the DS? (not that their were a lot to begin with)

Is the recession finally getting to the games industry? (17% is pretty big drop)

Does this prove that graphical power sells hardcore games?

Did all of the GTA fans spend their money on Pokemon instead? (805K units moved in March)

While none of these questions can be answered definitively, the fact remains that CTW underperformed.  Pokemon and GTA’s numbers should have been close if not identical.  Initial week sales are usually an indicator of a games overall performance, but many DS games are very slow burners (see New Super Mario Bros. and Mario Kart DS).  Maybe gamers are skeptical and will only buy this game if they see it in person.  Maybe the sales will stay steady and the success will come out in the wash.

If the DS is truly dying to core gamers (which right now is still a huge assumption), and the Wii fast becoming your grandmother’s system, are 3P developers going to limit their Nintendo releases to Cooking Mama and Imagine games?  The only real hardcore market that thrives on the DS is the RPG genre.  I would feel comfortable that the RPG gamer is not the same gamer as the GTA gamer.  So, its safe to bet, that even though Nintendo pulled several strings to GTA on the DS, all 3P companies will be watching the sales of CTW in the coming months before making development decisions.  OK Sony, go ahead and announce the PSP2 and feed off this press, you know you want to.

UPDATE: It gets worse, much worse!  The NPD released specific numbers for CTW and they are reporting that it sold “just under 90,000 units“.  Ouch!