According to digital intelligence firm Sensor Tower, 89 percent of everyone who has pre-ordered Grand Theft Auto VI so far picked the $99.99 Ultimate Edition over the $79.99 Standard, which is nearly 9 out of 10. Normally, when a game sells a cheap version and a pricier premium version, only about 10 to 20 percent of buyers spring for the expensive one. Most are fine with just the game. So for the next Grand Theft Auto to do the inverse is nothing short of remarkable, with Karl Kontus, Sensor Tower's general manager of video game insights, sharing with GamesIndustry he has "never seen a 90% premium share before."
The split barely changes between both platforms. Around 90 percent of Xbox preorders went Ultimate, with PlayStation a hair behind at 88.5 percent. All of it lines up with what Take-Two Interactive boss Strauss Zelnick has told us for weeks, that preorders were skewing hard toward the premium edition and already blowing past the company's own forecasts. The Ultimate Edition has also sat at the top of the preorder charts more or less since pre-orders opened.
However, according to the same analyst, this figure shouldn't hold. The people who preorder a game months out are the exact crowd most likely to buy the biggest version of anything. Kontus points out that the real marketing push has not even started yet, and that once the casual millions pile in during the final week before launch, the split should slide much closer to 50/50.
Perhaps this would explain why Zelnick wasn't quite ready to do a victory lap just yet following his confirmation of GTA 6's pre-order numbers.
GTA 6 Ultimate Edition share of preorders versus the industry norm
Segment | Share choosing the $99.99 Ultimate Edition |
|---|---|
GTA 6, all preorders | 89% |
GTA 6 on Xbox | About 90% |
GTA 6 on PlayStation | 88.5% |
A typical game's premium edition | 10% to 20% |
Analysts call a 50 percent premium share exceptional, and expect this number to slide toward 50/50 once casual buyers arrive nearer launch.
GTA 6's newest, most expensive tier is different from what Grand Theft Auto V had previously had back in 2013. It bundles in exclusive vehicles, weapons, entire businesses including a custom mod shop, and two side missions woven through the story, so the extra $20 buys content you actually cannot get any other way, and it's all digital. Kontus made the point that plenty of premium editions are just padding to justify a higher price and this one is not, and he even mused that Rockstar Games probably left money on the table by not shipping a $150 version.
None of this happened by accident. Rockstar built the tiers so that shops and even certain hairstyles live behind the $100 wall, so a superfan looking at the two options feels like the Standard edition is the one where they'll feel like they're missing out. $20 is still $20 but it's not a whole lot to pay more for if you're talking about the biggest video game of the current console generation. This was bound to go viral.
This is the fact that every other publisher is now studying. After clearing out the way for GTA 6 and seeing that buyers will pay $100 for a game that does not exist yet, Zelnick must really have been on to something when he said that the video game industry can still spend more. This is the monetization experiment Take-Two has openly said it wants to run, and the early data is telling the company, and everyone watching it, that players will pay.
With that said, we'll find out the actual numbers to watch in a few month's time. For now, the countdown to November 19 keeps ticking, and the Ultimate Edition keeps winning a race that has barely started.