Grand Theft Auto VI pre-orders keep ticking up. According to Sensor Tower, the analytics firm running a public sales tracker for the game, the next Grand Theft Auto added roughly 80,000 pre-orders over the past week, nudging the total to about 4.38 million with roughly a million of that being for the Xbox Series X|S.
Of course, these are merely estimates. While Sensor Tower is a legitimate analytics company, they don't have access to the actual sales sheet. The only people who know the real numbers are at Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive and likely Sony and Microsoft, and they are not telling a soul, with Take-Two only calling pre-order interest "unprecedented."
With that said, Xbox crossing a million pre-orders is a win. Previously, it was reported that PS5 orders were outselling Xbox sales 6-to-1. The latest figures paint a much closer fight, with Xbox pre-orders sitting at about 23% of the total. Naturally, Rockstar's exclusive marketing partnership with Sony steered attention toward PlayStation from the very start, so the Xbox pre-orders that have piled up regardless suggest a dedicated base uninterested in switching platforms.
GTA 6 pre-orders by the numbers as at August 18
Metric | Estimate |
|---|---|
Total pre-orders | ~4.38 million |
PlayStation 5 | ~3.38 million (about 77%) |
Xbox Series X and S | Just over 1 million (about 23%) |
Estimated revenue | ~$429 million |
Added in the past week | ~80,000 |
These are third-party estimates from Sensor Tower's model, not official numbers from Rockstar or the platform holders.
Pre-orders opened back in late June, so this is the quiet middle stretch, the lull after the diehards have already committed and before the launch rush starts. Sensor Tower's own analysts have said the vast majority of pre-orders arrive in the final week or two before a game ships, so a steady trickle of 80,000 a week right now is the calm before the actual number shows up.
Besides, between the leaks and the upcoming Netflix premiere, GTA 6 pre-orders over the next two weeks will dwarf this figure.
The 4.38 million works out to an estimated $429 million already committed, months before launch, which is why the game could essentially pay for itself before anyone plays it. It is also inflated by the fact that nearly nine in ten of those buyers are choosing the $100 Ultimate Edition over the $80 standard, a split that has analysts genuinely baffled.
None of this is a shock and none of it is the finish line. The number that actually matters is the one Sensor Tower cannot estimate yet, the launch-week total, and we will not see the real surge until the countdown to November 19 gets a lot shorter.
For now, GTA 6 is doing exactly what everyone expected, quietly, one modest weekly bump at a time.