Grand Theft Auto IV sales numbers are in

May 8th, 2008 |

Brace yourself for some shocking news. Are you ready for this?

Grand Theft Auto IV is selling well.

Yeah. I didn’t see that coming either.

So how well is it selling? Lets take a look at some initial data:

  • 6 million copies of Grand Theft Auto IV have been sold in the first week since the launch.
  • Over half of those (3.6 million) were sold on launch day.
  • The game has raked in over 500 million dollars in sales.
  • In North America, 60% of GTA IV copies sold are for the Xbox 360 platform, over the PS3. In Europe, the Xbox 360 claims about 55% of the sold copies.
  • Grand Theft Auto IV has overtaken Call of Duty 4 as the #1 game on Xbox Live (for now, at least)

It all comes down to this: the release of Grand Theft Auto is now the biggest entertainment launch in history.

As for the console wars, Microsoft was quick to declare its own victory in the number of Xbox 360 copies sold over the PlayStation 3.

The fact that downloadable content will be Xbox-exclusive may have helped Microsoft take the lead in GTA IV sales. The company arranged a $50-million U.S. deal to ensure that GTA IV downloads will only appear on the Xbox Live service. However, Sony PlayStation boss David Reeves spoke out this week, claiming that DLC for the game probably will make its way to the PS3, eventually.

At any rate, Grand Theft Auto will probably reign for quite some time: I’m all hyped out for now.

4 comments for “Grand Theft Auto IV sales numbers are in”

  1. #1 Colleen W
    May 8th, 2008 at 8:11 pm

    With gas prices so high across the country, I guess most people are spending more time with the video games at home. GTA4 is definitely raking in the money as well as racking up the video game popularity points.

  2. #2 Ryan
    May 14th, 2008 at 6:18 pm

    I didn’t see it coming either when they predicted it to outsell Halo 3, which it did shockingly. Which received so much more positive attention than GTA IV which has been the most trashed game of all time.

  3. #3 Ryan
    May 14th, 2008 at 11:16 pm

    What really surprised most gamers was that it outsold Halo 3 in first week revenue while it was projected before hand still shocked me, while Halo 3 media coverage was everywhere, GTA IV was slightly more negative and probably the most trashed game ever by news outlets to date.

  4. #4 Colin Temple
    May 14th, 2008 at 11:41 pm

    …which just goes to show that all efforts to stop this series from being sold didn’t help a thing.

    Maybe all press really is good press.



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