Take-Two Interactive is having the kind of year most publishers dream about. Its long-running basketball sim NBA 2K27 is the best-selling game in the United States so far this year and the company is about to knock it off the top spot with another game it owns, Grand Theft Auto VI.
Circana's US tracking has NBA 2K27 as the year-to-date sales leader, with GTA 6 arriving November 19. This is Circana's US ranking by dollar sales of physical and full-game digital copies. Following its release, NBA 2K27 overtook Resident Evil Requiem to lead the US chart through early October.
Here is the full US top ten for the year so far, through early October, before GTA 6 enters the picture.
Best-selling games of 2026 in the US so far
Rank | Game | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
1 | NBA 2K27 | Take-Two Interactive |
2 | Resident Evil Requiem | Capcom |
3 | 007 First Light | IO Interactive |
4 | MLB The Show 26 | Sony |
5 | Crimson Desert | Pearl Abyss |
6 | Call of Duty | Activision |
7 | Forza Horizon 6 | Microsoft |
8 | Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream | Nintendo |
9 | LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight | Warner Bros. |
10 | Pokemon Pokopia | The Pokemon Company |
GTA 6 is not on the list yet, and it is widely expected to take the top spot soon after November 19.
GTA 6 is not on that list for a simple reason. It has not come out, so it has zero sales in the year-to-date chart but that won't hold for long. GTA 6's preorders already sit near seven million digital copies worth an estimated 630 million dollars by late October, with Circana logging record purchase intent for it. Analysts expect it to take the US and full-year sales crown almost immediately after launch, by a wide margin, so that expectation looks like a safe one.
The part that stands out is that both the current champion and its heir belong to the same company. Take-Two owns NBA 2K27 through its 2K label and GTA 6 through Rockstar Games, so whatever happens at the top of the US chart, the publisher keeps the number one spot in the family. Take-Two has been guiding its finances around the GTA 6 launch for a while, which is exactly why. One of its games replacing another as the year's biggest seller is the kind of problem every publisher wishes it had.
Sales are only half the story. GTA 6 could top the year's review charts too if it holds to form. Rockstar's open-world games have scored in the high 80s to mid 90s on Metacritic, so a strong reception would put it at or near the top of 2026's best-reviewed releases. The scores will stay unknown until the embargo lifts on November 18, a day before launch.
This is one more record in a pile that keeps growing. Grand Theft Auto V is already the second-best-selling game ever, Sony has called GTA 6 a potential best-selling PlayStation game and analysts think rival studios panicked over it for nothing. A game that has not shipped a single copy is already reshaping how the whole year gets measured.
For Take-Two, the only question is how big the gap gets. GTA 6 launches on November 19. A couple of weeks after that, the best-selling game of the year will almost certainly be the one Take-Two just put out.