GTA V Will Crank Up $1 Billion In Sales Within The First Month

GamesIndustry.Biz reports that GTA V will generate $1 billion in revenue in the first month alone. Analyst Colin Sebastian believes that GTA V is unprecedented because of the levels of “pentup demand” that exist for the game.

“To-date, Take Two has shipped roughly 25 million units worldwide of GTA IV, and our checks suggest an uptick in catalog sales in the weeks ahead of tonight’s GTA V launch. Given the significantly higher installed base of relevant console platforms at launch, greater sales concentration among the top video game franchises, and unprecedented pentup demand, we expect GTA V to outpace GTA IV sales, and generate roughly $1 billion in retail sales during the first month.”

This means that by October 17th the game should have generated $1 billion in revenue. In terms of sales they are expected to shift around 12 million in September and many more millions in October. By the end of the Take Two fiscal year in March 20 million copies are expected to be sold. Analyst Colin Sebastian believes if GTA V does well it could have a positive domino effect for other games in the games industry – reigniting peoples’ enthusiasm for gaming.

“We believe that consumer demand for GTA V is a useful yardstick to measure potential sales momentum for other key 2013 releases, most notably Call of Duty Ghosts (ATVI), Battlefield 4 (EA) and Assassin’s Creed IV (UbiSoft). Our retail checks suggest that Activision and EA are both aggressively courting GTA buyers to pre-order titles.”

Image courtesy of Rockstar Games