MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
The juggernaut that is Grand Theft Auto V has now surpassed 80m sales, according to publisher Take-Two. In the company’s Q4 and fiscal year earnings release, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick confirmed that the title has now sold at least another 5m copies since the company’s last earnings report in February, taking its total sell-in figure to an impressive 80m since its launch in September 2013.
"The title continues to attract and delight new audiences, especially as the installed base of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One expands further," Zelnick said.
Indeed, he revealed to MCV that physical sales are still the driving force behind the title’s seemingly unstoppable success, standing at 75 per cent compared to 25 per cent digital sales: "What’s driving this is that consumers love this title and want more of it," he added.
It’s unsurprising, then, that GTA V was also the largest contributor to the publisher’s bookings in both Q4 and the fiscal year as a whole, helping Take-Two’s catalogue titles reached an impressive $880.7m last financial year, which is almost 50 per cent of the company’s total bookings for the entire year.
Grand Theft Auto Online had another "record year" as well, delivering year-on-year bookings growth in Q4, and "substantially exceeding our expectations," says Zelnick. It was also the "single-largest contributor to recurrent consumer spending" over the last quarter.
It’s not just Rockstar’s titles that are doing well, though, as 2K’s Mafia III has now sold-in more than 5m units, while Civilization VI has sold-in nearly 2m units. Zelnick also revealed the Civilization series has a whole has now sold more than 40m units worldwide.
NBA 2K17 is also set to become Take-Two’s highest-selling sports title ever, with a sell-in of nearly 8m to date. Its recurrent consumer spending also continues to grow, rising 71 per cent over the last fiscal year.
