Grand Theft Auto IV misses week one million sales mark

Grand Theft Auto IV sold almost 1m copies during its first five days on sale in the UK, according to local market watcher Chart-Track and the European Leisure Software Publishers Assocation. A total of 926,000 copies of the game were sold between 28 April and 3 May – despite the game only going on sale on 29 April. Nonetheless …

[Andy Tunnah]

wonder what would have happened if supply met demand ?

altho these figures are impressive, imagine how many would of been sold if there was actually enough copies to go around ?

not only was it sold out in every shop i went to, i even heard of some ppl who pre-oredered it not being able to get it because not enough copies were sent

where i work there's about 50 or so ppl waiting for retock so they can buy it

so i reckon that figure is only about 75-85% of the actual figure if the stock was available

[Eden]

So I assume

That all the Games = Violence advocates will be predicting

926,000 Murders or serious assults by frenzied brain washed gamer killers in the next few days then?

[Anonymous Coward]

HAH!

Should've brought out the PC version at the same time, would've hit their mill.

Serves them right.

[Darren Coleman]

Game of the Year hands down

Anyone who hasn't got this yet needs to beg, borrow or steal their way to get a copy - it really is that good.

Compelling story, incredible attention to detail both visually and in terms of subtle touches, it's well worth the purchase price in pure entertainment value.

[Anonymously Deflowered]

It's only due to shortages

If every single retailer hadn't run out of stock then I imagine GTA would have easily sailed past the 1m in a week mark.

I *still* can't decide whether to buy an XBox or PS3, BTW. It'll probably depend on which version of GTA4 I see on a shelf first!

[Iain]

Not bad, shame it's got a major bug in it still

Have a search on GTA IV freeze if you've not already had the problem, I'm one of 4 people here with a PS3 60GB system and every single one of us has had the freezing issues to one degree or another. Others reporting the same issues with the XBox 360.

Fix, log off the PSN before loading the game, brilliant for an online muliple player game!!!!

Come on RockStar, sort it out!

[richard]

1 million - a miss?

isn't that fantastic sales in one week?

isn't it a superb game?

why do you have to give the story a negative spin then?

who set the million target? you lot?

jeez, give this UK company some credit....

[hans]

Not enough units

Take 2 did not press enough units, or they would have made it.

Blame the distro :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the stock?

I think if they made sure there was sufficient stock on store shelves to meet the demand they may have sold their 1m copies. Every high street store and most on-line retailers had sold out during the first week most people who got a copy on release day pre-ordered.

The few places that did manage to get stock in seemed to be force bundling GTA IV with another low quality game or bit of kit. I heard of one place selling X360 versions of GTA bundled with a PSP memory card!

Same is true for the Wii fit. Try getting one of those on the high street.

[Anonymous Coward]

No surprise

It was pretty obvious the 360 version would outsell the PS3 version due to the amount of bugs, crashes, the poor graphics and the lack of any future content on the PS3 version. This despite the fact the PS3 has few other decent games hence making PS3 users more likely to buy it due to having no other choice of games to buy instead.

It's just another demonstration of how much better the 360 is doing than the PS3, as with Call of Duty 4 and other cross platform games the 360 has shown that it's able to better perform than Sony's lies that Cell is somehow a magically powerful processor when the fact is it was just Sony's attempt to bring down the price of Cell in other markets at the expense of consumers foolish enough to buy their console. At the end of the day the PS3s hardware setup was a mistake, lower RAM, crappy processor for gaming and a 2 generations ago graphics card. About the only thing they got right was Bluray, something with the 360 will also have by the end of the year but has tons of downloadable HD movies and TV shows already to keep people going.

[James Pickett]

Slow burn

It sounds like just about everyone who wanted GTA has got it now.

I bet Nintendo sells more Wii Fits in the long run (and makes more money)...

[Hugh_Pym]

Blimey...

... someone has been drinking neat hyperbolade. You want to take a bit of water with it mate!

"massive, ""eclipsed", "down a peg or too [sic]". Surely not the reasoned and sensible prose we expect of El Reg.

"A total of 926,000 copies of the game were sold between 28 April and 3 May" 6% short - 'almost' a million apparently. I could go with that but....

... "a massive 631,000 copies passed through UK tills on day one – eclipsing Chart-Track’s initial estimate of 609,000 copies." Under 4% out. I would suggest that that's not a bad guess but here it is ''eclipsing".

We all know it's a big game release, everybody loves GTA. But calm down guy, you'll do yourself an injury.

[Mark]

PS3 numbers do not include bundles.

Obviously, in Europe, we have the official PS3 GTA IV bundle, but the Chartrack numbers do not include these.

It's concivable that Sony shifted 100,000 GTA IV PS3 bundles across Europe.

Either way, it looks like Microsoft's big $$$$ bung did for DLC did not really pay off, it did not gain, merely stoped it from losing.

[Schroeder]

@AC 11:40

OK, I'll bite - you are bill gates and I claim my £5.

Yet another desperate sound bite, kicking a Microsoft competitor, as they start to move back ahead of Microsoft.

Only 100,000 difference in sales, despite the promise of some exclusive DLC and a 16 month head start in actual console sales. And the figures don't include the bundles yet, so they could well be closer.

I can guess which company is more worried - oh and have Sony actually stopped competing against themselves and discontinued the PS2 yet?

Still, as others have commented, Take 2 shot themselves in the foot a little by not ensuring there was adequate stock. It might have helped in keeping the hype going a little, but they may well have hit that 1 million sales if they'd actually got some in the shops - there were none to be had round here until Friday, if you hadn't pre-ordered.

[MarmiteToast]

@Iain

I've also got the PS3 60GB and haven't had any problems at all. Mines from Japan though so there's probably a few difference.

PH: Because she's bound to make an appearance somewhere in this game.

[Iain]

Limited by stock

Both GTA4 (for both formats, but particularly 360) and Wii Fit were a nightmare to find in stock last week. I managed to get the latter (along with a Wii to play it on), but no GTA yet. Although the Wii stuff I got was so good I'm not in a rush anyway.

The really interesting figures will be those in a few months time, once everyone who wanted one at launch has been able to find it, and the word of mouth buzz has sorted itself out as well.

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: @AC 11:40

>> And the figures don't include the bundles yet, so they could well be closer.

That's true, if I had had my choice, I would have bought the PS3 bundle for £300 which to my mind is much better value than any of the XBox offerings. As it is I had to buy the £160 XBox non-official bundle (with the prospect of spending £60 on a proprietary 20GB SATA HDD, £40 per year on XBox Live, no WiFi, plus lots of heat and noise). Clearly the PS3 is the better machine and better value - I got the 360 because it means that although I get no WiFi atleast can be sure I still have a Wifey, and although the console drones a bit, it is less than my Wifey would if I spanked £300 pound on a console (she won't notice the HDD or Live costs).

[Rob]

@Anonymous Coward "No surprise"

Speaking from the "balanced" camp (those who are serious about gaming and own all the next-gen consoles to ensure they don't miss out on exclusives), I must say that I'm still amazing by the amount of 360 fanboy-ism that permeates discussions about games consoles.

Why do you care? If you think you have the "better" console, be happy with that. It's not as if you are going to win some sort of prize for owning the most commercially successful console. If you were, I recommend to buy a Wii.

I would really like to think that we can avoid these stream-of-consciousness outbursts on The Register, but apparently not.

...And if you are going take every opportunity to post your unqualified value judgments across the net, at least get your facts straight. Most of your qualifying statements were flawed, and a simple glance on Wikipedia will show that.

[Sam]

@Anonymous Coward "No surprise"

The 'superior' machine now back into 3rd place in Europe when it had a 16 month lead time ahead of the PS3 :)

Also they have the same amount of RAM, the PS3 is just split.

Side note : 40gig PS3 working like a charm here, online, offline, upside down, back-to-front, and when killing ho's for money.

[Stuart Butterworth]

but...

I want to know where the version for MY games machine is :(

Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.8GHz

GeForce 8800GTS 512Mb

8Gb RAM

Kubuntu 8.04 64-bit

Wine 0.9.59

24" monitor @1920*1200

Cost not too much more than a PS3, and the only thing it cant do (yet) is play HD-DVD/BD - but give me time...

[Tim Bates]

Re: but...

Don't worry Stuart... It's coming. Same as how GTA3, VC and SA came about 6-9 months later.

And from the sounds of things... A good thing too. They should get some of the bugs sorted by then ;-)

[Schroeder]

@Stuart

You must be looking at some expensive shops then, as quick look on dabs puts that system at least £200 more than the current 40GB PS3, even using the cheapest build your own options - and thats excluding the monitor!

Still a nice a system, bet it keeps you house nice and warm.

One of the main reasons I ended up with a PS3 was that I got sick of shelling out another £100-150 quid on a new graphics card every year, just to play the latest games at a decent frame-rate, without having to turn all the detail off.

I did notice they've got an MSI 8800GTS for £90, but as it's nearly half the price of the other 8800GTS cards I wonder what's wrong with it ...

[William Towle]

...but proves video games don't affect people.

Yet again the newspapers are awash with letters about how the stabbings and fights in shop queues prove games like this affect people? Pah.

If video games affect people, this fans of this series would be stealing cars, ramraiding the shops for the current release, and running over the shopkeeper on the way out!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm waiting

for R* to go PS exclusive again (the rumours have been going around for a while). Then we can watch all the xblot fans cry....

As for GTA IV, no freezing for me, just lots of fun jolly japes in Liberty City. Now for some more mindless violence, where my shotgun.

[Stuart Butterworth]

@ Schroeder

I paid a hell of a lot less for the monitor than an LCD/plasma TV with a comparable resoloution, which brings the whole lot down to around the cost of a PS3 and a decent TV.

As for the heat - lets just say that, with the current weather, I'm considering putting it back to the default 2.4GHz.

[Mark]

PC Gaming.

PC gaming is a dying breed.

There is no GTA IV for PC, Rockstar have confirmed that (indeed, all Rockstar releases are now PS3 exclusive).

Crysis is no longer PC exclusive, thank to rampant piracy on PC systems.

In short, consoles are where the money is, piracy is small time compared to PC(and to date, non existant on PS3).

[Iain]

@Stuart Butterworth

Yes, a 40" 1080p LCD is quite expensive. But, when the 360 outputs to VGA and most decent large-format PC monitors will take a HDCP input through DVI or HDMI, and so support both HD consoles, monitor price is a pointless quibble.