Big Trouble with Little Chinatown

We really don't understand why Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars isn't topping the charts this week. Perhaps you have some answers?

We'd just like to raise the question of why so very few gamers are buying the brilliant new GTA for PSP and Nintendo DS. The situation is genuinely confusing. Not even a blip on the all formats Top 40 this week for the PSP edition, which entered the PSP chart at Number 4 behind the other newcomer WWE Smackdown. When the DS version launched earlier this year we thought it would sell one-on-one with the new DSi, opening up a cool guy-friendly avenue for Nintendo's female-favourite handheld. This did not happen at all, forcing Rockstar if not the entire games publishing industry to rethink its ambitions.

We've told you that it's superb in our review and preview for DS and PSP respectively. We've yet to encounter a review across the gaming press that says anything too far removed from ‘This is brilliant, please buy this game'.

Have we been spoiled by the knockout visuals in GTA IV? Are we taking GTA too seriously, when the whole thing is supposed to be a joke - bleak, but a joke? Have we taken an instant dislike to sarcastic hero Huang? Or is it basically that bite-size GTA, despite having some of the coolest features in the series, is not enough to satisfy those long commutes while on the other hand tricky to dip-in / dip-out?

How does a top rated game, on the two hottest handhelds, and GTA no-less, manage to stay out of the spotlight? Basically, why are you people not buying GTA Chinatown Wars? We'd really like to know.