GTA 6 Pre-Purchases Near 8 Million, With PS5 Taking About Three-Quarters

Grand Theft Auto VI is already a sales story before its launch. Sensor Tower, the research firm that tracks game spending, has updated its GTA 6 tracker and estimates pre-purchases have reached 7.71 million units, which works out to about $751 million in gross revenue. These are unofficial estimates, not figures published by Rockstar or Take-Two, so they are best read as a strong signal rather than a final tally.

The platform split is the most lopsided part of the data. Sensor Tower counts 5.74 million pre-purchases on PS5 and 1.97 million on Xbox Series X|S, which puts PS5 at roughly 74 percent of sales and Xbox at 26 percent. In revenue terms that is about $559 million on Sony's console against $192 million on Microsoft's. Both platform holders keep around 30 percent of each sale as a platform fee, so both companies profit directly from the game's early run.

Nobody who follows console hardware should be surprised by the gap. PS5 has sold far more units than the Xbox Series lineup for years, and the pre-order mix mirrors that installed base. Microsoft has still said GTA 6 is breaking records on Xbox, and it has found attention-grabbing ways to market around the game, including a GTA 6-inspired custom Xbox console that sits inside an alligator. Sony holds the marketing rights on PS5, so its promotion runs on a separate track.

Sensor Tower projects as many as 25 million pre-purchases by launch. If the 74/26 split held at that scale, that would mean about 18.5 million units on PS5 and 6.5 million on Xbox Series X|S. Separately, Circana reports that 29 percent of US console and PC gamers plan to buy the game. That is nearly one in three, and Circana says it is the highest purchase intent it has ever measured for a single title.

The game launches November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. It is roughly 212GB, and preloading opens more than a week ahead of release. Because it unlocks at midnight local time, players in New Zealand will be the first in the world to play, while US players will be among the last.

The sales momentum is good news for hardware and accessory makers, but it does not make new consoles cheaper. Buyers hoping to get into the game will face some of the highest hardware prices yet, and analysts caution that a blockbuster will not solve the industry's deeper structural problems.