Since its inception, the Grand Theft Auto franchise has found unbelievable success for Rockstar. Grand Theft Auto V is no exception. Originally released in 2013, the game has been ported to a number of consoles, racking up some impressive sales, along the way. In fact, the game is the third best-selling video game of all-time, and it has now sold more than 120 million units worldwide! While that number puts the game far ahead of most would-be competitors, it's still quite a bit behind Minecraft and Tetris. Those two games hold the top two spots on the list at 180 million and 170 million, respectively.

According to Daniel Ahmad, senior analyst at Niko Partners, Grand Theft Auto V sold around 20 million units in 2019. That's an insanely impressive stat, let alone for a game that's nearly seven years old, at this point. At the start of this year, Grand Theft Auto V was added to Xbox GamePass. It will be interesting to see if the service results in decreased sales for the title when the numbers come in for 2020, or if Rockstar's giant will simply continue, unabated.

There are a handful of reasons to account for the game's longevity. Despite the game's age, Rockstar continues to support Grand Theft Auto Online with a steady stream of DLC (though some gamers wish there had been single player DLC, as well). In fact, Rockstar just released the game's Diamond Casino Heist DLC in December.

To add some additional context. This is how much GTA V has sold (roughly) each year.

2013: 32.5m
2014: 12.5m
2015: 15m
2016: 15m
2017: 15m
2018: 10m
2019: 20m

Total: 120m

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) February 6, 2020

Still, lots of popular games have gotten DLC and still haven't put up numbers even close to what Grand Theft Auto V has managed to achieve. At the end of the day, it's a game that has gotten incredible reviews over the years, and fans are clearly still discovering it. While Rockstar has not yet announced a follow-up to the title, it will be interesting to see if Grand Theft Auto VI, or whatever it is that comes next, will be able to come anywhere close. Either way, that will be up to the consumers to decide.



Posted: Feb 09, 2020 7:16 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://comicbook.com/gaming/2020/02/06/grand-theft-auto-v-120-million-units-rockstar/