The number — and the pace

Grand Theft Auto V passed 230 million copies in Take-Two’s fiscal Q4 2026 results, announced in May 2026 — up about five million from the 225 million it reported in February. That quarterly five-million clip has been remarkably steady: it works out to roughly 20 million copies a year, a pace most brand-new releases never reach.

To put the longevity in context, GTA V launched on 17 September 2013, before the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One existed. It has now outlived two full console generations and is still climbing the charts in 2026, months before its sequel arrives.

How a 13-year-old game keeps selling

Two things explain almost all of it: re-releases and GTA Online. Rockstar has shipped GTA V on three console generations — PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2013, PS4 and Xbox One in 2014, then PS5 and Xbox Series X|S in 2022 — plus PC. Each new platform opens a fresh wave of first-time buyers, and many players have bought the same game more than once.

The engine underneath is GTA Online, the multiplayer mode that has run continuous heists, updates and events since launch. A new buyer doesn’t arrive to a dead game — they find a world still full of other people, which is exactly what keeps the sales tail from ever flattening.

The most profitable entertainment product ever

GTA V made $815.7 million on its first day and crossed $1 billion within three days — a Guinness World Record that stood for more than a decade. Estimates of its lifetime haul vary, but unit sales alone are put around $6 billion, and GTA Online’s microtransactions add several billion more.

Combined, GTA V and GTA Online are widely estimated to have generated on the order of $9–11 billion — which is why it is routinely described as the most profitable entertainment product in history, ahead of any single film, album or theme-park attraction. The exact total is an estimate built from Take-Two’s filings, not an official line item, so treat the figure as a well-grounded ballpark rather than a precise number.

The baseline GTA VI inherits

That 230 million is the bar the sequel has to clear. Grand Theft Auto VIis set for 19 November 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and analysts expect the biggest entertainment launch ever staged — some projecting around 20 million copies in its opening days alone. Whether it can match GTA V’s thirteen-year tail is the open question; the launch number almost certainly won’t be.

Curious how GTA V fits into the wider series? See the companion page on how many Grand Theft Auto games there are, with a build-your-own count and a live GTA VI countdown.

The game that straddled two eras

GTA V is the bridge between two ways of selling games. It shipped as a premium, sixty-dollar boxed product — the old model — and then quietly became a live service, the new one, before "live service" was even the industry buzzword. Most games pick a side. GTA V collected both revenue streams for over a decade, which is why its numbers look less like a game’s and more like a platform’s.

The unsettling part for the rest of the industry: the best-selling release of the modern era is now thirteen years old. A medium that prizes the new is, at its commercial peak, still selling something built before the current consoles existed.

Common questions

Game: which sold more?

Five matchups from the all-time charts. The crowded middle is where it gets hard.

Sources

More gaming counts