Grand Theft Auto franchise up to 125 million shipped, GTA 4 at 25m
125 million copies of Grand Theft Auto games have shipped to retailers, with a fifth of that figure represented by Grand Theft Auto 4, in at 25 million. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick announced the franchise's new milestone at this year's Credit Suisse Technology Conference. GameSpot later confirmed it with a Take Two representative, who also disclosed the figure for GTA 4.
That means Take Two shipped 3 million copies of GTA 4 in the last 14 months, and 11 million franchise units. According to Zelnick, it's the irregular scheduling that maintains the series' popularity. Zelnick cited his understanding that Call of Duty Black Ops 2 is performing poorer commercially than Modern Warfare 3.
"That's never been the case with one of ours," said Zelnick. "Ours do better each time. Our view is it's hard to make permanent intellectual properties if you annualize it, with the exception of sports titles. So far that's proven to be the case. IP that is annualized eventually seems to hit the wall and we don't want our IP to hit the wall."
For the record, Activision recently announced Black Ops 2 made $500 million on its first day at retail, up from the $400 million for Modern Warfare 3.
