Although it hasn’t had the same impact as the GTA series on the PS2, the franchise has made a very worthy debut on the PSP with Liberty City Stories. It was easily one of the top games for the month of October and it dominated handheld sales. We take a look at the successful transition of Grand Theft Auto from console to portable.
It looks like it might be time for Sony and Take-Two (and fanboys) to concede that Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories simply isn’t the PSP killer app that GTA 3 and its two sequels were for the PS2. That being said, LCS is still very much a success story. It was one of October’s best sellers, and is setting a pace to become one of the PSP’s top pieces of software (with a shot at reaching #1), after it has a few more months of availability under its belt.
The game is a technological marvel as well. Even without lighting the world on fire with 7-digit sales in the first month, Sony can still point to the title as an incredible illustration of just how powerful their system is. Showing off a fully realized, streaming Liberty City on the PSP’s crisp widescreen is a very powerful message.
Strong Sales; No Hardware Impact
LCS moved just over 158,000 copies in October according to NPD, making it the month’s #3 overall SKU and the #1 portable title. For comparison, the month’s #2 handheld title, Konami’s latest Castlevania for the Nintendo DS, sold about 77,000 copies.
| [ |
"LCS is likely to perform very well over the holiday season and is in an excellent position to become the ’go to’ game for new PSP owners." |
] |
Thanks to the $50 premium that top-tier PSP games are able to command, the revenue gap between October’s handheld titles is even more pronounced, showing just how much of a winner LCS was for Take-Two. The game’s 158K in sales translated into almost $8 million in revenue. Castlevania’s 77K in sales totaled $2.65 million in revenue.
While the game was still one of October’s big winners, it’s worth noting that it simply wasn’t the system-seller many anticipated it would be. There are many possible explanations. One likely scenario is that despite LCS’s technological achievements, the game doesn’t really break much ground. GTA 3 was a revolutionary title that convinced gamers that they had to own a PS2. LCS is a great game and pushes the PSP hardware, but since it uses that same aging formula it wasn’t able to convince gamers to shell out $250 for the hardware.
"One thing that did surprise me is that GTA: Liberty Stories didn’t drive PSP hardware sales. Liberty Stories was the best-selling PSP title introduction, yet October PSP hardware sales were lower than September," NPD Entertainment Industry Analyst Anita Frazier told GameDAILY BIZ in early November. "Certainly the demographics align, as the PSP is the ’oldest’ of the three handheld systems. I definitely expect sales to increase dramatically in November and December."
Impressive PSP Debut
It would be easy to write off LCS as just another PSP cash-in on a successful PS2 franchise. Easy, and incorrect. Liberty City Stories is the best reviewed PSP game yet according to gamerankings.com. Rockstar once again seemed to employ a group of magicians rather than programmers, as they have been able to squeeze things out of the PSP that other developers just haven’t (yet) been able to accomplish.
Although Liberty City is a smaller setting than Vice City or San Andreas, it’s still a hefty chunk of real estate, and Rockstar managed to make this world load-free, besides a lengthy load upon startup.
Additionally, Rockstar seemed to refuse to accept that they were making a handheld title. The game is big. Rather than cut corners to accommodate the smaller disk size and meet gamers’ lowered handheld expectations, the team created a game as filled with radio stations, side missions, and secret packages as any of its console cousins. GTA: LCS is the best value available on the PSP, in terms of sheer volume of gameplay.
Future Stories Likely
Despite not being a system seller or an out-of-the-gate million seller, Take-Two still has to be very pleased with Liberty City Stories’ performance. The franchise extension is likely to perform very well over the holiday season and is in an excellent position to become the "go to" game for new PSP owners. LCS will also most likely be able to maintain its $50 price point longer than many other AAA PSP titles.
Take-Two is already hinting at further "extensions" of the GTA franchise, but it’s still too early for gamers to ferret away dollars for Vice City Stories. The company’s September earnings results did note that "extensions of the Grand Theft Auto franchise" were in the works, but company executives have refused to elaborate.
Source: biz.gamedaily.com
