GTA 5 has just had its worse quarter since launch, meaning its sales are finally starting to slow down.
As revealed in publisher Take-Two's quarterly financial earnings call, GTA 5 only sold around one million units this quarter (July - September). Of course, one million is still an impressive number - especially for a game that initially came out nine years ago - but compared to previous quarters, it looks like GTA 5 is finally starting to slow down.
There are several reasons why sales may be starting to stall however - one of them could be down to the announcement of GTA 6 earlier this year. There's a possibility that those who are yet to step into Los Santos could now be waiting for the newer version of Grand Theft Auto instead of picking up GTA 5 on one of its many platforms.
- GTA 5 is "the standard-bearer for the industry over three generations," but GTA 6 publisher's CEO isn't taking that for granted: "We don't claim success until it occurs"
- GTA 6 will double GTA 5 and make $3.2 billion in its first year, analysts say – "The pent-up demand is greater than anything we’ve seen before”
This shouldn't be a reason to discourage people though, as we've likely still got a fairly long wait before GTA 6 is due to release, as the recent GTA 6 leaks have demonstrated. Speaking of the leaks, elsewhere in the report the CEO of Take-Two called the GTA 6 leak "terribly disappointing" but said that it won't affect development.
Despite the lower number of sales though, Take-Two has also revealed that since launching in 2013, GTA 5 has still sold 170 million units worldwide - with the entire GTA franchise now having sold 385 million units. Fellow Rockstar IP Red Dead Redemption is also still going strong as the franchise has sold over 70 million units worldwide, while Red Dead Redemption 2 has sold over 46 million units alone. In fact, the sequel is the second best-selling title in the US in the past five years (based on dollar sales).
Want to read more about the future of GTA 5? Take-Two addresses the GTA 6 leak as GTA 5 sales stall – is this the start of the home stretch?
