Grand Theft Auto 6 had accumulated an estimated 7.71 million digital pre-order records roughly two weeks before launch, according to Sensor Tower. The analytics firm’s tracker puts estimated gross revenue from those orders at $751 million, figures that reflect modeled consumer activity and not publisher-confirmed pre-order or revenue figures from Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive.
PS5 Holds a Commanding Lead
PlayStation 5 holds a substantial advantage in estimated pre-order share, though the data does not point to a single explanation.
PlayStation 5 accounts for 74% of estimated pre-orders, translating to approximately $559 million in modeled revenue, according to Sensor Tower. Xbox Series X|S represents the remaining 26%, or roughly $192 million. Factors such as installed base size, regional console ownership patterns, and platform-specific purchasing behavior are all plausible contributors to the gap, but the available data does not establish a single cause.
Most Buyers Are Paying Full Premium
Nearly nine in ten pre-order customers chose the higher-priced edition, though that group likely skews toward the franchise’s most committed fans.
Earlier Sensor Tower data shows 89% of GTA 6 pre-orders went to the $100 Ultimate Edition, with just 11% choosing the $80 Standard Edition. That split was broadly consistent across both platforms. Pre-order buyers typically represent a franchise’s most committed fans, so the edition mix may not reflect the broader audience that purchases after launch.
How It Compares to the Last Big Benchmark
GTA 6 is running well ahead of recent benchmarks, though the comparison carries important limits.
Sensor Tower says GTA 6 digital pre-orders ran 148% ahead of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 at the equivalent point before that game’s 2022 launch. That comparison covers U.S. digital pre-orders only and excludes boxed releases, so it does not measure total physical-and-digital demand for either video games.
Analyst Projections: Big Numbers, Wide Range
The most detailed public estimate comes from Sensor Tower’s Karl Kontus, who sees demand as unusually concentrated in the pre-launch window.
Karl Kontus, Sensor Tower’s senior vice president and general manager of Video Game Insights, has estimated that total pre-orders could reach approximately 25 million rather than the 40 million-plus a standard pre-order trajectory might suggest. Demand for GTA 6 appears unusually front-loaded, meaning a larger-than-normal share of buyers committed early, according to Kontus.
Kontus referenced Cyberpunk 2077, which reported eight million publisher-announced pre-orders by launch, as a point of comparison. His projection that 25 million GTA 6 pre-orders could represent roughly $2 billion in sales by launch is an analyst estimate, not a confirmed forecast. The Cyberpunk 2077 figure also uses publisher-disclosed pre-order data, not Sensor Tower’s modeled methodology, making a direct comparison imprecise.
Broader analyst projections cited by GamesIndustry.biz range from approximately 25 million to more than 50 million units sold, though the reports do not specify whether those figures refer to launch-period, first-year, or lifetime sales. The unusual strength of the Grand Theft Auto brand across console generations adds further variability to any projection. Publisher-reported first-week sales figures after launch will be the first hard data to test how closely estimated pre-order momentum translates into confirmed commercial results.
