Claims about GTA 6 pre-orders are incorrect and "absurd", analyst firm says, but it's still had the "strongest pre-order campaign ever recorded"

We all knew that GTA 6 was going to be big, but new data from a video game market data analyst group suggests Rockstar's upcoming sandbox game has already earned in excess of $260m for the company.

The short version

• According to data shared by Newzoo (via VGC ), players spent approximately $180m on digital pre-orders across the US and European markets during the last week of June.
• Using that data, and mapping it onto player distribution of GTA 5 , Newzoo estimates that the game made $260m in its first week - that'll be $180m from the US and Europe, and a further $80m from other regions around the world.
• "Contrary to social media reports, GTA 6 has not done a billion dollars in pre-orders 21 weeks out," notes the Newzoo analysis.

What happened

Given how pre-order curves look, nothing ever has and nothing ever will in the near future. "What the data actually shows is $180 million in digital pre-order spend across the US and the five largest European markets in the final week of June, translating to a global opening week of roughly $260 million, with most of the ramp still ahead.

Why it matters

"Run that figure through the plausible band of preorder curves, and GTA VI is on track to book between $3.25 billion and $5.2 billion in week-one launch revenue.

Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at Eurogamer via the links above and below.