Quick, what’s the highest selling (non bundled) game of all time? If you answered Mario Kart Wii, you were right, as with 35.5 million units sold worldwide, the game achieved staggering sales. But Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V, released last year, is closing the gap very rapidly, and during yesterday’s earnings report, Take Two reported that the game had already sold 34 million units worldwide in just one year.
“In terms of GTA 5, obviously, having sold something like 34 million units for what is now a prior gen, we know we’re attracting a very significant core gamer audience and we also attracted people who are not core gamers,” said Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick to investors. “But we don’t think we had 100% market share of everyone who had platforms, and so we do think there’s an opportunity for people who haven’t yet enjoyed the title to enjoy it for next gen.
“Equally, when you do go buy a new platform, it seems to me that it would be very exciting to have one of the most important titles in the industry. We’re immensely proud of the achievements of the Rockstar team for GTA, and we’re anxiously awaiting the November [current-gen] release. So we’ll see how it goes.”
Well, the release on PC, PS4, and Xbox One should at the very least add another half a dozen million to that number, so… yeah, that’s a job well done, GTA. That’s a job very well done.
