By Kris Graft
The Nintendo DS has never been known as a bastion for sexual themes, blood and gore, violence, profanity, or other similarly "adult"-themed entertainment ingredients.
That hasn't stopped a few companies--emphasis on "few"--from dipping their toes in the very niche mature market on the DS. From a commercial standpoint, the most notable Mature-rated game coming to the happy-go-lucky handheld is Take-Two and Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, which the U.S.-based Entertainment Software Rating Board labels as chock full of blood and gore, drugs, sex, profanity and violence.
In other words, Rockstar's Chinatown is a world away from Professor Layton's Curious Village.
Smaller independent developers have recently tested the mature market on the DS, finding very limited company (ESRB's website lists only seven M-rated DS games). Graffiti Entertainment is publishing NoWay Studio's aptly-titled C.O.R.E., a first-person M-rated FPS that draws inspiration from classic shooters such as Quake. The game is due in April.
“It is a bigger risk, definitely, but we decided we wanted to take that risk," says Graffiti CEO Kenneth Hurley. "The feedback that I was getting from the older guys who are 17 or 18 years old, they have their DS, but they’re looking for more hardcore titles.”
According to an early 2008 report, analysts at Wedbush Morgan pegged the average DS owner to be between eight and 16 years of age, while owners of Sony's rival PSP handheld are estimated to be around 16 to 24 years old. Top-selling DS games include virtually anything with Mario, Brain Age and Pokemon--all E-rated fare.
But with DS hardware sales approaching 100 million units worldwide, surely there are a few owners who can legally by a pack of cigarettes.
“At first we weren’t sure about publishing C.O.R.E. because it was a mature title for the DS," Hurley says. "But in the end, I went and did a little bit of talking with some people, some gamers I know. There’s nothing but the 'E for Everyone' titles out there. Older gamers still have their DSes and really want to pick them up again, but there aren’t many mature games out there.”
GTA: Chinatown Wars will be an interesting experiment on the DS. It's the most popular M-rated franchise on the planet, released on one of the most popular gaming devices ever created, which just happens to be positioned by Nintendo as very kid- and family-friendly.
Sony has been happy to point out this paradox. John Koller, director of hardware marketing in North America, recently categorized the DS fanbase as primarily "under 12," adding in a later interview with MTV Multiplayer that the pairing of GTA and the DS "raises some eyebrows in a lot of areas." The GTA franchise found success on the PSP with Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories.
But it's not the first time that GTA has appeared on Nintendo handhelds. Chinatown will actually be the series' fourth appearance across three Nintendo portables. But Rockstar North and Rockstar Leeds appear to be taking especially good care of the development of Chinatown, more so than previous take-along entries.
Can Chinatown bust open a market for smaller companies looking to release M-rated DS games? “Yeah, I really think it can," says Hurley. "The good news is that the DS is the number one handheld platform. A lot of companies have basically toned down their games to get a T rating. I don’t think that’s doing the gamer any justice.”
