GTA IV Breaks Entertainment Launch Records Posted by XanTium | May 7 11:11 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From next-gen.biz: [QUOTE] Retail sales of Grand Theft Auto IV topped $500 million during its first week on sale, surpassing the all-time entertainment records for day one and week one sales by dollar value. According to publisher Take-Two, Grand Theft Auto IV sold approximately six million units globally with an estimated retail value of more than $500 million in the first week. The game sold approximately 3.6 million units on its opening day with a retail value of approximately $310 million globally. Halo 3 set the previous videogame box office launch record, generating $300 million in first week sales, while Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End held the all-time entertainment launch record after grossing $404 million in six days. [/QUOTE] Full Story: next-gen.biz

Wow, that's pretty amazing. It still surprises me that GTA is so insanely popular and I had somehow never realized it before. I guess it's because when the others came out I was more of a PC gamer, so by the time it came to PC it had cooled off a lot.

I don't think the Halo 3 comparison is really fair, though, since GTA4 launched on two platforms.

Thats just what I was thinking about comparing H3 to GTA, well if H3 got 300, and gta is 500, then double H3 is 600 so it wins ... narr both awesome games though, good on 'em (rockstar)

what I don't get is how 6 million games sold can generate $500 million

500 / 6 = $83 per game sold. Something's not right...

The Special Edition was $90, so that accounts for something and it was probably "about 6 million" and "about 500 million" you can round a few hundred thousand and no one will second guess you, but it's enough to throw off the average.

They also don't state if this is US only or world wide... keep in mine games costs more than $60 in other countries... typically closer to US $80 or $90 and the Special Edition would be significantly more than that.

in the UK game costs 50 GBP which at the moment is about 100 USD, and thats jut the bog-standard version not the special edtion, which if im not mistaken i 70 GBP/ 140 USD aint it f**ked up! and dont even get me started on the price of petrol lol (FYI over 8 bucks a gallon and climbing FAST!!!!!!)

Um...

"approximately six million units globally with an estimated retail value of more than $500 million in the first week."

like said above ... there's the special edition and the low value of the USD compared to EUR and GBP.

The standard game is sold for 60eur in Europe, that's 92usd, the special edition is 90eur which is 139usd.

Also these figures sometimes don't count what people actually buy, they just count what the stores bought and have on the shelves. It's pretty safe to assume that most of what they stock is going to sell, especially in the first week, so that's how a lot of it works. I could be wrong in this case, but that's how it's been done in the past with CD sales and such things.

I got mine today, £45 , got it from Game, it's awesome.

this is exactly what i was thinking, i have never played any games in the series but will plan on picking this one up in the next few weeks...it's crazy popular...

and yes, the H3 comparison is apples to oranges since GTA was a dual-platform marketing and release...and not to mention the increase in console sales over the past 7 months...

Also the Pirates of the Carribean comparison isn't fair - GTA IV has made $500 million, and sold 6 million copies. As m.e said, that works out at $83 per copy on average.
Well Pirates is a movie, and what's the cost of the average cinema ticket? Certainly less than $83. Even if we say $15, that means 27 million people went to see it, so that's 4.5 times the number of people who have bought GTA IV. Saying $10 means 40 million people.

So no, not great comparisons, but the basic fact that it's the highest entertainment launch ever is still true.

I told you it would be big...