Nintendo stretches logic in an agressive push to defend Chinatown Wars sales

It's always interesting when companies that very rarely talk to the press suddenly start aggressively doing so.

Case in point: Nintendo of America, which generally has a corporate policy to never say anything interesting to a journalist, talking to two major game blogs after the most recent NPD report showed that "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars" bombed in its first month on sale.

VP of licensing and head of third party publisher relations Steve Singer spoke to MTV Multiplayer; VP of corporate affairs Denise Kaigler talked to Kotaku.

Their message: Everything is fine here. No need to worry.

They certainly have some valid points. Kaigler noted that "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" for the DS sold only 36,000 units its first month, but in the 16 months hence has moved a decent 500,000 units. Singer said that "Spore" and "Lego Star Wars" had similar sales curves where they sold the vast majority of their units after the first month (unlike, say, "Grand Theft Auto IV").

But the very fact that these two are out talking, instead of just letting Rockstar and its owner Take-Two defend the game's performance, belies their seeming confidence. When Nintendo executives talk, they have a good reason. Here, they clearly want to send a message to hard core gamers and third party developers: Big franchises and M-rated games can work on the DS, despite the evidence to the contrary. Don't give up on us. We want to expand the DS(i) to as large an audience as possible and rake in as much licensing revenue from a wide variety of games as we can. That requires dispelling the (well justified) stereotype that our portable console is only for kids and casual players.

So we know what their message is. But is it accurate? It's a stretch, to say the least. Singer seems to be missing the point when he makes comparisons to "Spore" and "Lego Star Wars." Those games were both rated E.

I don't think anybody believes that big franchises can't work on the DS. After all, Mario and Zelda are both pretty big franchises. Even the critically derided "Guitar Hero: On Tour" did well.

The problem, most of us think, is that "Chinatown Wars" was rated M. And a very hard M at that. "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" is the best comparison, but even that game was rated T. Shooting people in war is very different than dealing drugs and killing cops.

In addition, "Chinatown Wars" got much better reviews than any of those three games.

There are 26.3 million DS's in the U.S., more than the 360 and PS3 combined and almost twice the number of PSPs. In its first two weeks, "Chinatown Wars" sold 97% fewer units than "GTA IV" did in its first five days. And the new game had an 83% larger potential audience.

Of course we would expect console versions of "GTA" to sell better, since they're bigger and better and similar to what gamers love. But even the two "GTA" games for PSP, as I previously reported, sold more than "Chinatown Wars" in their first months to much smaller hardware bases.

If "Chinatown Wars" really does follow the same sales pattern as "Modern Warfare," it could do OK. That would put it on track to sell over 1.2 million units. But that's still not a "Pokemon"-size blockbuster.

The fact is, "Chinatown Wars" had everything going for it: A very well known brand, amazing reviews, and a big marketing campaign. Those should all add up to a big launch. But they didn't. Are you willing to bet there are a million adult owners of a DS who weren't interested in "Chinatown Wars" last month but will buy it at some point in the future? I'm not.