Summary
TheGrand Theft Autofranchise has sold 410 million units as of September 2023. Publisher Take-Two Interactive shared the series' latest sales milestone just asRockstar finally broke silence onGrand Theft Auto 6by saying that its first trailer is coming in early December.
The long-running franchise has been going from strength to strength since entering its 3D era in 2001. Take-Two recently revealed thatGrand Theft Autogames hit 400 million in lifetime salesas of March 2023. The series then added another 5 million units to its sales tally come the end of June.
That pace continued over the following three months, with Take-Two’s financial report for the second quarter of its fiscal year 2024 revealing that theGrand Theft Autofranchise now boasts 410 million in lifetime sales. As per usual, its latest milestone is largely attributed to the never-ending success ofGTA 5, as the contributions from the older games in the series amounted to a rounding error over the observed period.
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Specifically, the fifth mainline entry has sold some 190 million units as of September 30, just over ten years into its release, thus accounting for nearly half of the series' lifetime sales. The chances ofGTA 5actually passing that 50% threshold seem fairly likely, as this current pace puts it on track to do so in September 2024, but only if its much-anticipated sequel isn’t already out by then. And while Rockstar likely wouldn’t be gearing up to finally showcase its next game in December if the project wasn’t verging on completion, multiple recent reports andinsider forecasts indicated thatGTA 6won’t be out until spring 2025, at the earliest.
Another factor to consider is that theGTAseries has historically been prone to delays, as underlined by the fact that all of its 3D installments except forLiberty City Storieswere postponed at least once. A December 2023 reveal hence doesn’t necessarily guarantee thatGTA 6will be out by early 2025. For example, Rockstar took nearly two years to finishGTA 5after unveiling the game in November 2011.
Precedent suggests Rockstar won’t attach a specific release window to its firstGrand Theft Auto 6trailer, likely because it’s still too soon to commit to one. And while it remains to be seen what the upcoming promo will depict, the developer’s mereannouncement of theGTA 6trailer already broke a Twitter engagement record, indicating that the interest in the game is at an all-time high.
Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto is an action-adventure franchise originally created by David Jones and Mike Dailly from DMA Design in 1997. Following the release of Grand Theft Auto 3 in 2001, DMA Design was renamed Rockstar North and became part of that label for Take-Two Interactive. The franchise typically revolves around third person shooting and driving around open worlds that are inspired by real world locations like Miami, New York, and Los Angeles. With the release of Grand Theft Auto 5 in 2013, the series has quickly become the fifth best selling video game franchise of all time.
