Chinatown Wars Gets HD iPad Version

The multiplatform journey of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars continues with the announcement of an HD version for Apple's iPad. It promises new and "updated" graphics, 50 missions, sidequests and the ability to play one's own music for the soundtrack. Chinatown Wars was GTA's first outing on Nintendo DS, and by all critics' accounts, was remarkably successful even alongside the work of experienced DS developers. It received overwhelmingly positive reviews -- but sold only 90,000 units in its debut month, shining a spotlight on whether Mature-rated content is viable on Nintendo's handheld. Although neither Rockstar nor publisher Take-Two has disclosed life-to-date sales for Chinatown Wars on DS, Take-Two CEO Ben Feder has said the company's "very proud" of the game, and cited an achievement: it's accounted for half of M-rated sales on the DS platform. The company has been bringing Chinatown Wars to other platforms since; it launched a PSP edition that was widely-acclaimed (consumer site GameSpot called it 'even better than the DS original') -- but it failed to chart in the U.S. monthly NPD nor the UK top 40 charts within its release period. When it released on iPhone in January of this year, it consistently made the App Store's top 10 for numerous weeks following its release, and a free "Lite" version of the game regularly appeared among the top-downloaded free apps. The iPad version of the game arrives September 9, and will be priced at $9.99/£5.99.