Despite positive reviews, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars didn’t exactly set the sales charts on fire when it hit the market back in March of this year. Failing to crack the NPD top ten in its first month on shelves, many deemed the DS title a commercial failure, although Nintendo reported that they were pleased with the figures. Nintendo’s Denise Kaigler even went so far as to slap the “evergreen” label on it, claiming they expected it to have a long tail in sales.
Well maybe this move was planned from the start or perhaps things aren’t as green as we’d like to think, since Rockstar announced today that GTA: Chinatown Wars would also be bound for the PlayStation Portable – and in two flavors, no less!
“We’re proud to extend this truly unique handheld Grand Theft Auto experience to PSP and offer a downloadable version of Chinatown Wars for PSP Go,” said Rockstar head honcho, Sam Houser. “Rockstar Leeds has shown incredible talent in creating games that raise the bar in terms of depth and innovation on portables, and with Chinatown Wars we have a rich, fast-paced, and incredibly addictive entry into the series”
The PSP version of the title will be adding new story missions to the gameplay. No official word yet on how the touch-screen portions of the game would be handled on the touch-less PSP, although rampant internet speculation has people throwing about the idea that Rockstar may re-envision the title in a full 3D engine, much like the previous GTA entries for PSP. Considering that the press release cited that the game would be “specifically built for the PSP platform with upscaled widescreen graphics, enhanced lighting and animation”, it does make one wonder.
