Grand Theft Auto V publisher rakes in £500m within 24 hours

by Mark Tyson on 19 September 2013, 11:15

Tags: Rockstar Games (NASDAQ:TTWO), Take 2 Games, PC

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Take-Two Interactive has raked in US$800 million (about £500 million) from sales of Grand Theft Auto V in its first 24 hours of availability. The game went on sale at midnight on Tuesday and at midnight last night a total of between 13 million to 14 million units copies had been sold according to analysts. RockStar hasn’t confirmed the official sales figures at this time.

Daniel Ernst, an analyst at Hudson Square Research told Reuters “The last major Grand Theft Auto title sold just under 13 million in the course of the year. This did that in a day.” However the pent up demand of gamers, building ever since the 2008 release of Grand Theft Auto IV, made this latest edition fly off the shelves.

The GTA V sales figures are especially impressive when compared to other recent successful blockbuster titles, easily beating last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II which managed to make $500 million (about £320 million) in its debut 24 hours. However as the latest GTA game took about five years of development costing Rockstar Games studio in the region of $250 million, a flop was not an option. With 160 million gamers owning an Xbox 360 and/or PlayStation 3 games console there is plenty of potential for more sales. Porting the game to other platforms will also bring in lots more cash for Take-Two.

UK figures

Looking at UK specific figures, C&VG reports that 1.57 million copies of GTA V were sold to Xbox 360 and Sony PS3 owners in Blighty, raising £65 million in the first 24 hours. Again this compares favourably with last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II which sold 1.41 million copies, making £58 million, in its first day. C&VG also compiled a big review round up here.



HEXUS Forums :: 17 Comments

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twice as much as they spent on it. sweet
Looking forward to picking up a second hand copy in a year or so :)
Well they made zip out of me - didn't buy it (even the sooper, dooper, bells and whistles edition that Game were pushing hard). Got really put off by GTAIV which didn't appeal - too much (aimless?) driving around for my tastes. That said, if it looks any good (opinions welcomed) then I'll probably pony up for a sale price (would have preferred PC). Good news for the UK games industry though. :D

Made me smile though that on the GTAV launch day Volition, the makers of Saints Row, decided to launch a free “GAT V” DLC item for SRIV. So the GTA/SR needle match is still going on …
Not on PC, so I don't care.
Sucks though tbh, stupid kiddie consoles :/
nacasatu
Not on PC, so I don't care.
Sucks though tbh, stupid kiddie consoles :/

Thing is, though, that GTA never really worked on PC particularly well. I'm a hardcore PC gamer myself and I'll defend PC gaming forever but I always found that there's something about GTA that really craves an Xbox controller and a sofa.

Historical sales figures for GTA on PC will back that up, too.