Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto is now the sixth highest-selling video game franchise ever, with over 380 million copies sold. Surprisingly (or maybe not), GTA 5 is responsible for almost half of this, making it Rockstar’s most popular title ever.
GTA 5 was released in 2013, but has still managed to top the global sales charts on multiple occasions over the years. It is also the second highest-selling video game of all time – beaten only by Minecraft.
In a recent earnings report (via Wccftech), Take-Two Interactive revealed that GTA 5 has sold close to 170 million copies as of Q3 2022. Additionally, it has also generated a $1 billion revenue through retail sales, and has also been the best -selling game in the US for the past decade. The developer also reported a loss of around $100 million owing to the Zynga takeover, but will recover soon thanks to a great Q3 2022 start.
In the same report, CEO Strauss Zelnick recently said that the development of GTA 6 is ‘well underway’ and will set ‘creative benchmarks’ for the franchise. So far, we have only seen reports of what GTA 6 could be like. The most recent one suggested that the game will get its first female protagonist. Furthermore, it is claimed that the game will be set in a Miami-inspired area and will feature one of the biggest maps ever. Additionally, there is also talk of the game adding more cities post-launch. The same report also claims that Rockstar is going through an extreme makeover, where it moves away from the ‘crunch’ and the ‘frat boy’ culture. This is also one of the reasons the development of GTA 6 has been slow.
Rockstar prioritizing GTA 6 also meant that the development of other projects would be hindered. Apparently, this was the reason Red Dead Redemption and GTA 4 remasters were shelved.
There is still a long way to go for GTA 6 despite reports saying it has been in development since 2014. Until then, GTA 5 has a lot of time to break the 200 million unit sales mark and challenge Minecraft for the top spot.