Grand Theft Auto IV misses week one million sales mark
But still shatters records for Xbox 360 and PS3 sales
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, a massive 631,000 copies passed through UK tills on day one – eclipsing Chart-Track’s initial estimate of 609,000 copies.
The Rockstar title also managed to bring Wii Fit down a peg or two. GTA IV outsold the Nintendo ‘exercise’ game by nine copies to one last week. This pushed the Wii title’s UK sales down 58 per cent, forcing it into second place in UK game sales rankings.
Chart-Track recorded GTA IV week-one sales revenues totalling £39.9m, enough to make the week in question the year's second-most successful for the games business. The first was the very first week of the year, when all the folk who got consoles for Christmas went out and bought new games.
The Xbox 360 version of the game outsold the PS3 release 514,000 units to 413,000. Both set new sales records for both platforms. GTA IV beat Gran Turismo 5: Prologue's PS3 week-one sales of 120,000 units, while it surpassed Halo 3's Xbox 360 week-one record of 411,000 units, Chart-Track said.
COMMENTS
@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.
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).
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.
@ 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.
@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 ...
