Take-Two Interactive releases Grand Theft Auto VI on Nov. 19 with almost 7M preorders and more than $600M in revenue booked six weeks before launch, according to Sensor Tower.
That early haul runs 148% ahead of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, the next best-selling game of the past six years, at the same point in its cycle. Sensor Tower's Karl Kontus expects preorders to at least double by launch day, and analytics firm Newzoo estimates GTA 6 could produce up to $5.2B in sales during launch week alone.
The game costs $79.99, with an ultimate edition at $99.99. Sensor Tower's latest tracking counted 6.45M copies presold worth about $630M, with PlayStation accounting for 74% of them. PlayStation preorders have brought in $468M on 4.8M copies, while Xbox has generated $162M on 1.66M copies.
Pie chart. Revenue ($M). PlayStation: Revenue ($M) $468. Xbox: Revenue ($M) $162.
Demand spills into hardware, accessories, and subscriptions
Nearly one in three US console and PC gamers plan to buy the game, a 29% purchase intent reading that's the highest Circana has recorded for any title.
"Grand Theft Auto VI represents a rare cultural and commercial moment for the video game industry," said Circana video games industry analyst Mat Piscatella.
He expects demand to reach beyond software into consoles, accessories, and gaming subscriptions, with some buyers upgrading to a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series specifically to play it. The launch lands days before Black Friday, putting it inside the heaviest spending weeks of the fourth quarter for retailers and platform owners.
The predecessor explains the pull. Grand Theft Auto V is the best-selling premium game in Circana's US tracked history by both units and dollars, and it stayed in the top 20 US sellers for 13 straight years through 2025. In 2025 it still ranked third in total active users across the PlayStation and Xbox ecosystems.
A PC edition is expected in early 2027, which gives Take-Two a second revenue window well after the console debut, while preloading on consoles starts Nov. 12.
Workers are already planning around launch day
HR software company BambooHR found that 18% of American workers plan to take release day off, drawing on platform data covering more than 3.4M US employees and surveys of over 1,500 workers.
Requests for paid time off on Nov. 19 are running 13% above similar days in the previous two years. The timing helps, since 62% of Americans didn't use all their paid time off last year, per Vacation Tracker.
A widely circulated claim that the launch could cost the US economy $1B in lost productivity in a single day appears to trace back to a Barcelona economics professor and not a published paper, so it carries no verified methodology.
The measurable number remains the one Sensor Tower is counting, and it keeps climbing before a single copy has shipped.
