Nintendo reveals 'GTA' sales frustration

Nintendo has revealed its disappointment at the slow sales of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the DS.

Speaking to MTV Multiplayer, Nintendo America vice president of sales and marketing Cammie Dunaway described the game's sales performance as "frustrating", but expressed her hope that it will grow in popularity over time.

"Certainly there have been mature titles - Resident Evil, the first Call Of Duty - that have sold over a million units and with something like GTA, there's great content there," she said.

"We do think it'll have a long tail and we've seen that with a lot of titles across all genres on the DS platform that consumers continue to discover them. But part of what's needed is you have to continue to put marketing support behind these titles. It's one of the things we've learned over the past few years.

"The old dynamic of throw it on TV for a few weeks and forget [about] it isn't going to work, because new consumers are coming in all the time."

Earlier in the week, Broadpoint AmTech analyst Ben Schachter said that slow sales of GTA: Chinatown Wars coupled with the "relatively flat" performance of GTA IV's downloadable content could suggest that the series has reached its peak.