GTA 6 Is Set Up to Challenge Some of Gaming's Biggest Sales Records

Grand Theft Auto VI arrives on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and expectations for its sales are already enormous. Few analysts would bet against it becoming one of the biggest launches in the medium's history. The more interesting question is how far it can push past the records set by its predecessors and by Fallout 4.

The benchmarks are demanding. GTA V earned roughly $800 million in its first 24 hours and passed $1 billion within three days, and it has since sold more than 230 million copies. Red Dead Redemption II brought in about $725 million over its opening weekend, and Fallout 4 reportedly generated more than $750 million on launch day. GTA VI's base price of $80 is a notable step up from the $60 those games launched at. Adjusted for inflation, though, $60 in 2013 works out to about $85 today, so the real-terms gap is smaller than the headline figures suggest.

Take-Two has not published preorder totals or sales projections. CEO Strauss Zelnick has argued that raw preorder numbers could mislead investors, since any preorder can be cancelled. He said only that preorders "vastly" exceeded international expectations, without saying what those expectations were. Third-party estimates fill the gap. Sensor Tower's public tracker showed about 6.08 million preorders through October 13, worth an estimated $594 million, with roughly 74 percent coming from PS5. The firm's Karl Kontus projects around 25 million by launch, which would mean about $2 billion in revenue. He expects most of those orders to arrive in the final week, as hype peaks, and anticipates a near even split between the $80 and $100 editions.

Launch is only the start. Analysts expect the next version of GTA Online and a future PC release to create more revenue, and Jefferies recently argued that Take-Two's stock is undervalued and could climb. GTA Online has earned steadily for years through microtransactions and the GTA+ subscription, so that outlook is not a huge leap.

The market has also changed. GTA V launched near the end of the PS3 and Xbox 360 lifecycles, when those consoles had a combined install base above 150 million. Today, PS5 has sold more than 95 million units, with Xbox Series X|S estimated at about a third of that. Rising hardware prices and longer console generations complicate the picture. GTA VI has not been announced for Switch 2, although Nintendo of America's president has pointed fans toward Rockstar.

Whether GTA VI can match GTA V's long-term total is an open question. Its opening weeks, however, look likely to reset several records.