Sony and Microsoft say GTA 6 is the most pre-ordered game in their own stores, with no numbers

Sony and Microsoft have each said Grand Theft Auto VI is the most pre-ordered game in their own digital store, and neither has given a number. Both claims were published on November 10, 2026, nine days before launch.

Sony made its claim on the PlayStation Blog, in a post titled "Pre-load Grand Theft Auto VI on PS5 starting today". It says: "Grand Theft Auto VI is now the most pre-ordered game in the history of PlayStation Store." The post adds that "given this unprecedented demand", Sony joined Rockstar to let players start pre-loading nine days early. It also says Sony has adopted a "rolling midnight launch by country": New Zealand goes first at 12:00AM NZDT, and each other country follows when it hits midnight on November 19. Sony "strongly" advises anyone who wants to play on launch day to pre-load as soon as possible.

Microsoft's Xbox Wire post, which announces the game for Xbox Cloud Gaming, calls it "the most pre-ordered title of all time on the Microsoft Store". Xbox CEO Asha Sharma wrote on X that the game is "already the most pre-ordered game ever on Microsoft Store". Pure Xbox, which reported her post, describes it as a record for any Microsoft Store or Xbox Store game. We read the Wire post and Sharma's post ourselves, hers through X's public embed.

The Wire post also gives the cloud details. Streaming on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S starts at 1am ET on November 19, at Xbox Series S graphics settings. Microsoft says that from November 11, players in supported markets can stream by buying cloud playtime, with no Game Pass subscription needed. It says Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 are among Rockstar titles coming to Xbox Cloud Gaming "in the coming months".

Sharma's post opens: "Today marks the first step in our new 10-year strategic partnership with Take-Two." Neither her post nor the Wire page says what that partnership covers, and Pure Xbox notes that she gave no details. We don't know its scope, so we are not guessing at it.

What the claims do and don't mean: each is about one company's own store, so neither is an industry-wide or combined record, and the two can't be added together or compared across platforms. Neither company says how many pre-orders it means. Take-Two said on November 9 that pre-orders were "far in excess" of what it first expected, also with no figure; we covered that separately.

Any pre-order count you see is a third-party estimate. GGRecon reported on November 5 that Sensor Tower's weekly tracker put GTA 6 at about 7.71 million digital pre-orders on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, roughly 5.74 million on PS5 and 1.97 million on Xbox. GGRecon says physical copies are not counted, and it doesn't say which regions the figure covers or what date the data runs to. It is Sensor Tower's estimate from before these statements, and neither Rockstar, Take-Two, Sony nor Microsoft has confirmed it.

For players the practical point is the same from both companies: pre-load early.