Newzoo estimates GTA 6 has the strongest pre-order campaign on record, and calls $1 billion claims "absurd"

Analyst firm Newzoo estimated that GTA 6 was on track for "the strongest pre-order campaign ever recorded", GamesRadar+ reported on July 16, 2026, with Eurogamer following on July 17. These are Newzoo's estimates. Take-Two and Rockstar had not given a pre-order figure.

Newzoo said players spent about $180 million on digital pre-orders in the US and the five largest European markets in the last week of June. Mapping that onto where GTA 5's players were, it scaled the figure to roughly $260 million worldwide. GamesRadar+ said those six markets made up about 69 percent of GTA 5's lifetime console players. Eurogamer said that worldwide figure added about $80 million from other regions to the $180 million.

From there, Newzoo projected $3.25 billion to $5.2 billion in launch-week revenue, per Eurogamer's quote of the report (GamesRadar+ quoted the low end as $3.3 billion). The range comes from running the same starting figure through three sales-curve models, and Newzoo said GTA 6 would most closely follow the one for a proven sequel. Its middle case was $4.5 billion in launch week, around 51 million copies at an assumed $88 average price.

Newzoo also pushed back on claims on social media. In its words, saying GTA 6 had done a billion dollars in pre-orders was "absurd". It said the data showed $180 million in the final week of June, with most of the ramp still ahead.

Neither report cited sales data from Rockstar, which had released none. On November 9, Take-Two said GTA 6 pre-orders were "far in excess" of its expectations, again without giving a number.