OXCGN – XBox News Reviews and Views

GTA:IV will sell 13million copies in one month

by TWODOGSz

©2008 Aaron Bertinetti

“`The following was first written on the 17th April 2008, in part one I predict sales for Grand Theft Auto: IV of a record breaking 13million by the end of May 2008. In part two, I’ll explain why Gears of War 2 will sell almost 10million in its first month of release.

All the following figures are approximates taken from VGChartz and rounded to a single decimal.

Part One

It is my belief, along with many other analysts, that GTA:IV will break new grounds in financial terms for not only the video game industry, but for a global entertainment product. When Halo 3 was released on the Xbox360, it quickly assumed the biggest release of any video game of all time based on the back of an install base of 12m. In the proceeding four weeks the console saw its base grow another 1m consoles to see the Xbox360 total 13m consoles worldwide.

To date there have been approx. 7.6m sales of Halo 3. 3.8m in week one, 0.8m in week two (80% drop), 0.3m in week three (38% drop), and 0.2m in week four (33% drop). In all senses Halo 3 was a typical financial blockbuster, with a marketing push that saw huge sales in the first week followed by a massive 80% fall in takings in the second week along with continued sales erosion to a 0.13m average over the next six weeks.

At the end of four weeks Halo 3’s attach rate was 39.2%.

Since Halo 3 no title has got close to approaching this attach rate, however, I would argue that GTA:IV will be much like Halo 3 in terms of its mainstream appeal, marketing campaign and installed fan base. Both are identified with a particular brand (Sony and MS), both have similar hype levels, and both are reasons to buy a console (system sellers). Some may argue that the PS3 suffers an inferior attach rate and therefore such numbers are not possible, however, I believe this is largely the result of a relatively poor game library and the younger age of the console.

So in short, I believe GTA:IV will be a blockbuster.

Here’s where it gets interesting…

Prior to release analysts have predicted between 9-14m copies of GTA:IV will be sold on both platforms in the first month.

If we apply the Halo 3 attach rate to GTA:IV and assume an Xbox360 console base of 19.5m by the end of May, due to a similar 1m console sale spike in the month following GTA:IV, we can estimate that 7.6m copies of GTA:IV will be sold on the Xbox360 by the end of May.

Now whilst 7.6m sales of GTA:IV seems bullish, this is largely in line with analyst expectations of 6-8m copies sold on the Xbox360 in the first month.

What’s truly amazing is if we then apply the Halo 3 attach rate and console sales spike to the PS3 install base by end of May (about 13.8m consoles), and we realise another 5.4m sales of GTA:IV on the PS3 platform.

Again this is in the upper realms of analyst expectations of 3-6m copies sold on PS3 in the first month.

So recapping I believe that GTA:IV will sell 7.6m copies on the Xbox360 and 5.4m copies on the PS3. In total my sales estimate for GTA:IV across both platforms in the first month is a gobsmacking 13m copies, which would be in excess of a billion dollars in sales revenue.

A figure that will smash anything before or after it…

Unless of course there’s a GTA:V !

UPDATE 8 May 2008:

Early figures suggest 6m copies were sold across both platforms in the first week, which has predictably exceeded most analysts’ expectations of 5m copies in the first two weeks. This is great news for Rockstar, better news for Take Two and not so spectacular for EA… It’s also in line with the above analysis

“`Sales Facts:

“`Los Angeles Times Report

“`The San Jose’ Mercury

“`Silicon Valley Insider

Money in the bank for Rockstar/Take2

©2008 Aaron Bertinetti