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Grand Theft Auto V was always destined to make a ton of cash being one of, if not the biggest franchise in all of gaming. It was certainly going to need to after becoming the most expensive video game ever produced. Bloomberg had predicted that the franchise would make a billion within its first month, which seems to be a somewhat misjudged prediction now. Mostly because, after becoming one of the highest rated games of all-time, it should reach the billion mark point in just its first two days.
According to IGN, Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive revealed that GTA V made $800 million dollars in its first day of trading, to which they are quite understandably “thrilled” with. The company revealed that the game became “the highest first day retail sales of any title in the history of the company and the Grand Theft Auto series.” For a company that has the entire back catalog of GTA, as well as games like Red Dead Redemption, that is no small feat. But that statement might still be selling this success short.
For example, CVG reports that the game smashed retail records in the UK, quickly becoming the biggest video game launch ever seen. The game sold 1.57 million units for a total of around $104 million in Britain, plowing through the previous record set by Call of Duty: Black Ops which sold around 1.41 million units on its launch day. To put that in perspective, the UK has a population of around 63 million, meaning that more then 1 in 60 people in the entire country own a copy. That is a lot after just one day on the market.
To help put that figure into another perspective, after just one day on shelves, the money that Grand Theft Auto V has generated would put it as the 40th highest grossing movie release ever, making more money than Inception and Spider-Man in their entire worldwide runs in cinemas. Of course, the price of a game is more expensive than a movie ticket, and there is some room for inflation differences, but that it serves as a stark comparison especially when you consider the time frames being compared.
Grand Theft Auto V will continue to sell like hot cakes and it will be very interesting to see just how large the gross number becomes over the course of the next week, hopefully with a solid number on units sold surfacing. While it is utterly futile to compare a game and a movie, it would be fascinating to see just how it compared to some of the biggest ever movie releases, especially as the series won’t be transitioning to the big screen itself.
When Grand Theft Auto Online launches on October 1st, expect a sales spike then as well as a result of the hype and media coverage.
Grand Theft Auto 5 is available now for the PS3 and Xbox 360.
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GTA was always outstanding.
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