Take-Two Interactive has announced that life-to-date shipments of the entire Grand Theft Auto franchise have topped 125 million copies worldwide (up from 114 million in September 2011), with Grand Theft Auto IV accounting for 25 million units of that total.
Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two’s CEO, announced the impressive sales feat at this year’s Credit Suisse Technology Conference, although he stopped short of providing a breakdown for each GTA title. GameSpot later confirmed the total sales with a company representative, who then revealed the Grand Theft Auto IV sales figure.
Zelnick credited the success of the Grand Theft Auto series, at least in part, to its sporadic release schedule. He then compared this to Activision’s Call of Duty franchise, which he claimed is experiencing declining sales from Modern Warfare 3 to Black Ops 2.
“That’s never been the case with one of ours. Ours do better each time. Our view is it’s hard to make permanent intellectual properties if you annualize it, with the exception of sports titles. So far that’s proven to be the case. IP that is annualized eventually seems to hit the wall and we don’t want our IP to hit the wall.”
It should be noted that Activision has stated that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 brought in $500 million in day one revenue, up from approximately $400 million for Modern Warfare 3.
Source: MCV