Rockstar's Shipped 22 Million Copies Of GTA IV

[vansau]

Rockstar's Shipped 22 Million Copies Of GTA IV

How high can you count? Rockstar and Take-Two can count to 22 million.

Grand Theft Auto IV has undoubtedly sold very well and made both Rockstar and Take-Two quite a bit of money since it was released back in April 2008. A lot of money. How much, you ask? 22 million units worth of money, as it turns out.

Speaking at the ThinkEquity Annual Growth conference, Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick announced the stupidly high numbers, as well as the fact that the GTA franchise has shipped more than 114 million units in total. That's a lot of run-over hookers.

Additionally, Take-Two's got some other high-shipping game series:

Shipments of Take-Two's Midnight Club series have reached 18.5 million, NBA 2K 17 million and Red Dead Redemption 12.5 million. Strategy series Civilization has shipped 11 million, relatively new franchise Bioshock has reached 9 million and Wii hit Carnival Games 8 million units.

The Max Payne series - which will see a third title released early next year - has shipped 7.5 million units, the Mafia franchise 5 million, Borderlands 4.5 million and The Darkness 1 million units.

These numbers are all pretty impressive; Take-Two clearly has some strong franchises helping keep it afloat during a time when many companies are struggling to just stay alive. That said, I want you to go back and look at those numbers: Carnival Games has managed to outsell both Borderlands and The Darkness. Combined. That just seems wrong.

Source: <a href=http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-09-15-gta-iv-ships-more-than-22-million-units>GamesIndustry.biz

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[Wuggy]

22 million is indeed an impressive number. But the thing is that, as I recall, GTA IV was a game that came in bundled with a PS3. I'd imagine that it's an important factor take into account here.

 

[mysecondlife]

GTA franchise has shipped more than 114 units in total.

114 million units I assume?

 

[RelexCryo]

These numbers are all pretty impressive; Take-Two clearly has some strong franchises helping keep it afloat during a time when many companies are struggling to just stay alive. That said, I want you to go back and look at those numbers: Carnival Games has managed to outsell both Borderlands and The Darkness. Combined. That just seems wrong.

I think you summarized that perfectly. It does...just seem wrong. Oh well, I choose to be glad the existence of diversity in game design anyways.

 

[vansau]

GTA franchise has shipped more than 114 units in total.

114 million units I assume?

Psh. Shows what you know. 114 copies is more than enough to break records!

¬¬

(I may have corrected that as you caught it, sorry)

 

[KarlMonster]

Hold on, I'm trying to read the source material without registering for an industry wank site...

This space reserved for future criticism...

22 million is indeed an impressive number. But the thing is that, as I recall, GTA IV was a game that came in bundled with a PS3. I'd imagine that it's an important factor take into account here.

Found another summary here:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-15-grand-theft-auto-4-ships-22-million

Yeah, I'm betting that "22 million shipped" is leaning towards the 'crap' side of actual. Eurogamer points out that it doesn't mean that all units were *sold*. Hell, there could have been 22 million PS3's made and shipped - but that would be a little optimistic of them. I'm thinking that they are counting 'Liberty City' as being units of GTA IV, as well as having some fuzzy bookkeeping way of counting digital delivery (Steam) as 'units shipped'. That way each unique "CD key" that is available for a Steam delivery is a 'unit'. I know for a fact that it was cheap on Steam recently.

Both Bioshocks together shipped 9 million, but GTA IV shipped 22 million?

Alright! Which one of you guys has been playing with Planet Earth's Vertical Hold?
Come on! This isn't funny any more!

 

[vansau]

Hold on, I'm trying to read the source material without registering for an industry wank site...

This space reserved for future criticism

Claim you're a student. Access is free.

 

[KarlMonster]

Claim you're a student. Access is free.

Not happening. More visitors means more traffic numbers, means more ads run.
Screw. Them. All.

Edit: From Wikipedia: "On 3 March 2010, Take-Two Games announced that Grand Theft Auto IV has sold 15 million units globally. On 9 June 2010, Take-Two announced that Grand Theft Auto IV had sold over 17 million copies."

So GTA IV is selling (not 'shipped') about a million units a month? Is there a hand-held GTA IV title? So right now, they would be closer to 19 million sold with 3 million copies 'out there.'

Off-Topic: Now, I did get a free monthly subscription to a Skiing trade industry magazine by claiming that I was a ski shop. I had a shop name, but a curiously metropolitan address. That was amazingly freaking cool, and nobody ever called or checked me out.

 

[GiantRaven]

Both Bioshocks together shipped 9 million, but GTA IV shipped 22 million?

Alright! Which one of you guys has been playing with Planet Earth's Vertical Hold?
Come on! This isn't funny any more!

Are you trying to suggest that GTA IV selling more than the Bioshock games is somehow odd?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Rockstar's Shipped 22 Million Copies Of GTA IV

Unfortunately only 12 million arrived. 5 million had to go bowling with their cousin, and the other 5 million were hijacked by some Eastern European gentleman.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Well, GTA is awesome so it's not that surprising. Although, I didn't really like GTA IV. I liked those expansions a lot more, and even they weren't as good as GTA 3 era games. Not even close.

 

[Irridium]

Strategy series Civilization has shipped 11 million

And that one dude said strategy games "weren't contemporary" anymore.

 

[FamoFunk]

That's a lot of copies. Shame it the only ever GTA I've disliked and couldn't even complete; it did my head in so much.

 

[aPod]

I'm happy to see this. Rockstar always give games however much time they need to be good games rather than just push out some shitty cash-n every year.