GTA IV sells 6 million in its first week

By Tom Bramwell Published 7 May, 2008

3.6 million on day one.

Grand Theft Auto IV sold 3.6 million units on its first day and 6 million units in its first week, according to publisher Rockstar Games.

That means it "surpassed all-time entertainment records for day one and week one sales by dollar value", apparently, notching up USD 310 million on 29th April and more than USD 500 million for the week.

The last time a game managed anything like this was Halo 3 in November, which achieved first-day sales of USD 170 million in the US.

"Grand Theft Auto IV's first week performance represents the largest launch in the history of interactive entertainment, and we believe these retail sales levels surpass any movie or music launch to date," said Strauss Zelnick, chairman of Take-Two, Rockstar mother-company.

"Rockstar's goal is to make each new title in the Grand Theft Auto franchise even better than those that preceded it," said Take-Two CEO Ben Feder.

"Grand Theft Auto IV makes full use of the power of next generation technology, and offers players an experience unique in the interactive entertainment medium. This game sets a new standard in the industry, with critics hailing it as both an artistic and technological masterpiece," he added.

Guilty as charged - we called it "the best openworld game yet" and complained that it would "take something miraculous to rob it of game of the year status".

Earlier this week, Chart-Track announced that GTA IV sold 926,000 copies in its first week in the UK - 514,000 on 360 and 413,000 on PS3. If you ask me, that adds up to 927,000 copies, but then I'm not a respected chart monitor so what do I know.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (36) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • BadBoyBonner #1 4 years ago

    EA better up their offer! lol

  • DutchDemons #2 4 years ago

    nice stats.

    wondering what this game has done with the hardware sales

  • anomagnus #3 4 years ago

    they're fucked, this is JUST the ammunition that jack thompson needs to destroy them

  • Stu #4 4 years ago

    $310m in one day. Wow.

  • L42yB #5 4 years ago

    Hopefully this means that T2 won't sell out to EA. Come on, u have enough profit from this, don't u? Just keep going :)

  • RedPanda #6 4 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • Beano #7 4 years ago

    "$310m in one day. Wow."

    Meh... it's only dollars... virtually worthless money anyway ;)

  • Prodigy_BE #8 4 years ago

    @ dutchdemons

    Acording to VGchartz:

    Europe USA
    360 144.690 119.345
    PS3 197.410 145.196

    PS3 totals: 342.606
    360 totals: 264.035

    I dunno what PS3 does in Japan these days, but that should ad another 10.000 to the PS3's lead.

  • Psychotext #9 4 years ago

    Mmm... madeupchartz.

  • Artemus #10 4 years ago

    Big payday.

  • Beano #11 4 years ago

    "In that sense, it utterly failed. "

    Well... we don't know how it would have sold on 360 without the DLC ;)

  • GiarcYekrub #12 4 years ago

    I agree with Swam that 360 version would probally of acheived those numbers without DLC (the effects of which will be more evident long term when more concrete details are released) but the Microsoft marketing I think had a huge part in changing the image of this "playstation" title into a multiplatform title.

    Saying that I bought a 360 and a copy of GTA mainly due to the price and the DLC promised

  • Psychotext #13 4 years ago

    @swam: The $50m was a loan... not a payment. Jeez, why do I even bother replying to your posts?

  • Razz #14 4 years ago

    They've got more than half of the market. Big resullt.

    Pardon? I think you find that it is Nintendo that has the largest share of the market.

  • Psychotext #15 4 years ago

    @swam: Umm... that's exactly what it is. Check into it if you want.

  • monkie_king #16 4 years ago

    I think T2 will still sell, if EA have the cash to up their offer. Interestingly, their stock hasn't moved at all since February. Surely there's going to be a spike when the analysts see these figures?

    /goes long on TTWO

  • Psychotext #17 4 years ago

    @swam: You're not too bright are you? No matter.

  • Shyvah #18 4 years ago

    you're

  • Jheronimus #19 4 years ago

    Am I the only one here who thinks swam is no. 1 candidate of the fanbo1 of the year-award at the moment?

    Jeez, how annoying can someone be?

  • Eraysor #20 4 years ago

    Rockstar - destroyer of worlds.

  • Marshall2008 #21 4 years ago

    50 Million Dollars,

    say 3 million xbox 360 GTA owners buy the extra content at 800 ms points per piece at $10 per 800 points

    That's $60 million

    Pretty much covers the 50 mil advance they paid to rockstar.

  • stepneg #22 4 years ago

    @Jheronimus

    swam is the new new headbog but minus the comedy, I have to ignore him to make it possible to read the comments where as headbogs insane ramblings at least helped me get through the day.

  • evilbert #23 4 years ago

    @ Jheronimus

    Click 'ignore poster' ftw.

  • Prodigy_BE #24 4 years ago

    @Marchall2008

    DLC attach rate is always pretty low.
    The COD4 maps have sold 1 million, the combined numbers of PS3 en 360 sales is about 6 million.
    The DLC for COD4 is the most successful DLC up until now. Even if the GTA DLC does 1 in 5, that still leaves them with a 40 million USD crater. Not counting the money going into advertising the GTA DLC.

    They did it to boost console sales, not to turn a profit.

  • hybridial #25 4 years ago

    It won't take a miracle to rob it of game of the year status, just an actual good game.

  • ronuds #26 4 years ago

    We should do an experiment and see how closely VGChartz #'s line up with NPD's. I doubt if you did you'd use them as a reference anymore.

    In other words, they're horrible and their #'s are very inaccurate. NPD is, unfortunately, the only true tracker of sales in the US. VGChartz is a joke.

  • Khanivor #27 4 years ago

    Um, how does 3.6 million sales become 310 million dollars? To reach this figure 98% or so of all copies sold would have to be the special edition. And for 6 millions sales to equal 500 million bucks the average price of GTAIV would have to be $83.

    Do check figures before reporting them, eh?

  • Moz #28 4 years ago

    So thanx to MS they've actually made $360 gross already

  • sirtacos #29 4 years ago

    Statistics ahoy! Me loves me some columns of numbers, yar, especially when the numbers be equivalent to booty I'll never get to grab, giggity.

  • cyber_nicco #30 4 years ago

    "Razz: of that game. of course Nitendo are dominating gaming as a whole."

    Surely you mean they are dominating the "Japanese entertainment gizmo" market.

    :D

  • Dizzy #31 4 years ago

    "The COD4 maps have sold 1 million, the combined numbers of PS3 en 360 sales is about 6 million. "

    1 Million in one week actually.

  • Apologie #32 4 years ago

    READ... MICROSOFT AT IT'S BEST.

    GTA IV: Xbox vs PlayStation
    Beware the half-truths that Microsoft wants you to believe

    There's been a lot of focus in the last week on Grand Theft Auto IV and which platform it best runs on.

    The majority of people who've played both versions are saying that it runs marginally better on the PS3, but the findings are inconclusive at best: both are equally good in our eyes.

    What's interesting to me at the moment is how Microsoft is attempting to use GTA as a PR exercise to boast about the Xbox 360 console and its success.

    We received an unbelievable and outrageous press release today from Microsoft UK saying:

    "Gamers have voted with their wallets, and the results are in. The Xbox 360 version of 'Grand Theft Auto IV' has sold more than 100,000 copies, or 20 per cent more than the PlayStation 3 version in the UK since the game's release last Tuesday 29 April."

    Exaggeration and hyperbole

    The release then sees Microsoft rambling on and on, mostly just patting itself on the back about selling more copies and going on about how the Xbox 360 is the premium platform for enjoying GTA. Blah, blah, blah.

    Please excuse me briefly while I pause to be sick.

    Here's the point: there are more Xbox 360 consoles out there (it launched over a year earlier) so straight numbers are a terrible way of looking at the market. The Xbox 360 version of GTA IV sold 20 per cent more copies than the PS3 version. And that's despite the fact that there are almost twice as many Xbox 360 consoles in the wild in the UK, compared to PS3s.

    Crunch the numbers

    So, relatively speaking, for Microsoft to brag about doing better than Sony, it would need to sell almost twice as many copies of the game, too. But it didn't. And as such, the numbers say that per-console, the PS3 version has actually done a bit better.

    "Data released by ELSPA/Chart-Track shows Xbox 360 Week One sales at 514,000 copies sold in the UK. PlayStation 3 version of the game sold only 413,000 copies, clearly demonstrating that gamers prefer the Xbox 360 version," says the Microsoft press release progaganda exercise.

    What a load of complete rubbish, Microsoft!

    Let's do the maths. 413,000 PS3 copies of GTA IV divided by the 1.2m PS3 consoles sold in the UK, equates to about 0.3 copies sold per console. So basically one in three UK PS3 owners have bought GTA IV in the last seven days.

    Compare that to the 514,000 Xbox 360 copies sold in the UK, divided by the 2.2m consoles in circulation. It amounts to 0.23 copies per console. So about one in four Xbox 360 owners bought the game. Comparatively LESS than the PS3 version.

    It's all a load of smoke and mirrors nonsense. Everyone is up to it - it's not just Microsoft.

    This is an absolutely textbook example of a big company spouting a load of dingo's kidneys in order to promote itself.

    http://ww w.techradar.com/blogs/article/g...

    JUST another LIE...

  • moggsy #33 4 years ago

    @ Khanivor

    In the UK at least, the normal versions generally cost £40 and the special edition version £70 - so an $83 average could easily be correct - unless I'm missing something?
    Edited by 1 at 07/05/08 @ 21:12

  • CHAZBIGPOTATO #34 4 years ago

    As my man Old Dirty once said (sort of);

    "Now I'ma let all you motherfuckers know
    Whether you from Broker,
    whether you from Algonquin,
    You from Dukes jigga,
    I don't give a fffuck!....
    where you be, motherfucker!
    Where you resiiiiiiiiiide... mother-fucker!
    How you live?!! How you seeeeeeee...
    Sort the stack outs, this one's the blackout
    Three-fifty-seven to your mouth, blaaow!!"

  • WinterSnowblind #35 4 years ago

    @Apologie

    Of course Microsoft are spinning all of this news in their favour, what do you expect?
    Now perhaps if you give this much scrutiny to Sony's press releases you'll realise that we're all not so different.

  • IneptPercy #36 4 years ago

    I think it being one of the only decent games out for the PS3 would have helped its attached rate.

    On the other hand if this game was PS3 only then how many PS3s would have sold off the back of it, in other words microsoft took a nice share and probably stopped a good few PS3 sales aswell.

    It does seem that the PS3 losing its exclusives is doing it no good, the 4 games which would have sold me a PS3 to go with my 360 where ridge racer, devil may cry, ace combat and GTA5. As it is I have go them all on my 360 which means I still have no real need to buy a PS3.