We all knew that GTA 6 was going to be big, but new data from a video game market data analyst group suggests Rockstar’s upcoming sandbox game has already earned in excess of $260m for the company.
According to data shared by Newzoo (via VGC), players spent approximately $180m on digital pre-orders across the US and European markets during the last week of June. Using that data, and mapping it onto player distribution of GTA 5, Newzoo estimates that the game made $260m in its first week – that’ll be $180m from the US and Europe, and a further $80m from other regions around the world.
“That kicks off the strongest pre-order campaign ever recorded,” notes Newzoo. If you cast your mind back to 2014, you will remember that GTA 5 made headlines for making $1bn in just three days. Newzoo thinks GTA 6 will break even that impressive record, with these pre-order figures accounting for just 5.8 percent of sales in the game’s first week on sale (per the firm’s figures, at least). As a result, Newzoo estimates GTA 6 will bring in an eye-watering $4.5bn in its first week, selling through around 51m units.
“Contrary to social media reports, GTA 6 has not done a billion dollars in pre-orders 21 weeks out,” notes the Newzoo analysis. “This is absurd. Given how pre-order curves look, nothing ever has and nothing ever will in the near future.
“What the data actually shows is $180 million in digital pre-order spend across the US and the five largest European markets in the final week of June, translating to a global opening week of roughly $260 million, with most of the ramp still ahead.
“Run that figure through the plausible band of preorder curves, and GTA VI is on track to book between $3.25 billion and $5.2 billion in week-one launch revenue. Even at the most conservative reading, namely that GTA 6 front-loads harder than any major title in our dataset, it lands at a tremendous number by any historical standard.”
It’s worth noting that GTA 6 will launch on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, but not PC (possibly because Rockstar likes working within the constraints and limitations imposed by console hardware, as has been suggested by one former dev). That means, should Rockstar opt for a PC launch later down the line – as it has with GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 – there is another massive market ready and waiting. And, predictably, more money.
If you’re one of the millions of people giving Rockstar your money later this year, you will be able to play the game on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on 19th November – but you won’t be playing a physical version of the game, even if you pre-order.
