Take-Two Interactive has become the latest company to release their financial results for the previous quarter. Once again Grand Theft Auto V has sold an impressive amount of units. In fact, GTA V has now shifted so many copies that it has sold more than the entire Assassin’s Creed franchise put together.
The success of GTA V
Grand Theft Auto V has now sold more than 160 million units and these numbers are only likely to grow with the release of GTA V on PS5 on March 15. The game remains the fastest “entertainment release” to ever reach $1 billion in retail sales and is still the best selling game of the decade in the US for both number of units sold and dollar sales.
To put these numbers in context, Jason Schreier provided the latest figures for some of the other best-selling franchises. The entire Assassin’s Creed franchise had sold 155 million copies, although that figure is more than a year old from November 2020. As of December 2021, the Resident Evil franchise had sold 123 million copies. In fact, GTA V has sold nearly as many copies as the Final Fantasy franchise combined, the latter shifting 164 million units as of September 2021. So how is the Grand Theft Auto franchise doing in comparison? Well, the GTA series has now sold more than 370 million units.
Last year was also an “excellent year” for GTA Online, matching its previous record-setting monthly audience size of 2020. This was likely fueled by the continuous updates throughout the year, the most recent of which added new story content called The Contract. This game will also gather a new audience when it is released as a standalone version of March 15.
In other news, Haven Studios was asked to pitch three games to Sony for consideration. Sony liked them so much they offered to fund all of them, but Haven decided they would be better placed to start with just a single game. Elsewhere, The Wolf Among Us 2 is getting a behind the scenes stream later this week.