The numbers around Grand Theft Auto 6 have finally attracted a firm willing to put a range on them, and it is a big one. As reported by Video Games Chronicle, market data firm Newzoo has analysed the opening week of GTA 6 pre-orders and declared it “the strongest pre-order campaign ever recorded”.
How much have GTA 6 pre-orders actually made?
Newzoo estimates roughly $260 million was spent globally on GTA 6 pre-orders in their first week. That figure comes from a measured data point — around $180 million in digital pre-order spending across the US and the five largest European markets during the last week of June — which the firm scaled up using GTA 5’s player distribution as a guide.
That is the actual measured picture, and it is worth holding onto, because the internet has been telling a very different story. Newzoo is blunt about it: “Contrary to social media reports, GTA 6 has not done a billion dollars in pre-orders 21 weeks out. This is absurd. Given how pre-order curves look, nothing ever has and nothing ever will in the near future.” The $1 billion claim doing the rounds is, in the firm’s reading, simply not supported by the data — most of the pre-order ramp is still ahead.
Could GTA 6 really sell 51 million copies in a week?
Newzoo projects GTA 6 will sell between 37 and 51 million copies in its first week on sale, when the game launches in November. The firm models blockbuster releases against three sales curves — a brand-new IP that builds after reviews, a sequel with performance uncertainty where players wait, and a “proven sequel” that books heavy pre-orders early — and slots GTA 6 firmly into the last category.
Run through that model, first-week pre-orders account for roughly 5.8% of total launch-week sales, putting the game on pace for around $4.5 billion in sales and roughly 51 million copies by the end of week one. Because GTA 6 is the most anticipated game of all time, Newzoo allows that its pre-orders may be more front-loaded than usual — but even in that conservative scenario the game lands around $3.3 billion in sales and 37 million units. As the firm puts it, that would still be “a tremendous number by any historical standard”. The full projected band is $3.25 billion to $5.2 billion in week-one launch revenue.