Newzoo projects GTA 6 first-week sales up to $5.2B

With less than a week until Grand Theft Auto VI arrives on Thursday, Nov. 19, the video game industry is preparing for what analysts expect to be the largest entertainment launch ever. Variety reported that market research firm Newzoo estimates the game will earn $3.25 billion to $5.2 billion in first-week sales on PlayStation 5 Sony Group Corporation and Xbox Series X and S. Variety put the game's reported budget at $1.5 billion. In a new documentary, Bloomberg Originals says the game will launch at a hard moment for the industry, which is dealing with rising development budgets, mass layoffs and widespread studio closures.variety.com+1

Preorders run high, guidance stays put

On Nov. 9, Rockstar parent Take-Two Interactive ↘ 1.88% raised its annual revenue forecast to $7.98 billion to $8.18 billion but kept its bookings outlook at $8 billion to $8.2 billion. CEO Strauss Zelnick said preorders were tracking "far in excess" of initial expectations. Sensor Tower data counted about 7.71 million digital preorders as of Nov. 3, worth an estimated $750 million or more in gross revenue. Second-quarter bookings fell 18% to $1.6 billion, and revenue came in at $1.5 billion, below what analysts expected News Corp ↘ 2.54%.wsj.com+2

"We never claim success before it occurs, so we're just days away from beginning to see the fruits of our labor," Zelnick told Variety, calling himself "cautiously optimistic".variety.com

A staggered rollout

The standard edition costs $79.99 and the Ultimate Edition $99.99. Nearly 90% of preorders through the end of August were for the more expensive version Thomson Reuters Corporation ↗ 0.39%. Console preloads opened Nov. 10 for a download of about 212 GB. The console launch is digital-only, and physical copies and the PC version are due in 2027. Microsoft ↗ 0.36% said the game will also stream through Xbox Cloud Gaming starting at 1 a.m. ET on launch day, including on older Xbox One consoles. The Bloomberg documentary says multiplayer will come about a year later, a timeline Rockstar has not confirmed.ibtimes.co.uk+3

Beyond the balance sheet

The game's reach goes beyond gaming. Netflix ↘ 2.87% streamed an extended look at the game in August. Christoph Hartmann, who heads Ubisoft's ↘ 3.54% Massive Entertainment, predicted that "hardly anyone in the gaming industry is going to be working that day." The launch also lands as Rockstar workers continue a union campaign that now has public support from SAG-AFTRA.variety.com

Joost Van Dreunen, an analyst who teaches at NYU, said Rockstar is "not the underdog" anymore. The question now, he said, is whether the studio "can maintain that character, and can it commercialize that?".variety.com