The video game industry is bracing for a massive influx of reservations for GTA VI, billed as the biggest launch in entertainment history.
Thirteen years of waiting will soon end: the video game “Grand Theft Auto VI”, the latest opus in the saga from American studio Rockstar Games, is now available for pre-sale in most countries around the world. Players can reserve their copy of this title which promises to break all sales records when it is released in November.
Global enthusiasm for a historic launch
Starting this Thursday, players can reserve their copy of this game online and in certain stores, which allows them to play as gangsters in an open world, to be sure of being able to play it as soon as it is released worldwide on November 19. For pre-orders in digital format, the game will be downloaded to consoles a week before – a measure designed for small Internet connections –, and will be activated on the big day. There will be no disc inside the physical version of the game, but a simple sheet with a download code. This is why this boxed version will be commercially available from November 12. But, again, it will be impossible to play before November 19.
In the United States, the standard edition of the game will cost $79.99 (around 70 euros), ten dollars more than the average price of big-budget games when they are released. An Ultimate edition, containing bonuses such as vehicles and weapons new to the game, will be sold at $99.99 (around 88 euros). In France, the standard edition is offered at 79.99 euros and the Ultimate edition at 99.99 euros on the console online stores.
According to analysts at investment bank Piper Sandler, some 45 million copies of “GTA VI” could be sold even before its release.
GTA VI will be the “biggest launch ever in the field of entertainment”, surpassing “any film, television series, concert or album sales”, estimates Piers Harding-Rolls, expert at the British firm Ampere Analysis. The game would thus beat the previous record established by “GTA V”, which in 2013 became the cultural product having crossed the threshold of one billion revenues the fastest, in just three days.
Players’ expectations live up to the success of the previous episode, which sold nearly 230 million copies, becoming the second best-selling video game in history after “Minecraft”.
A cultural phenomenon and a challenge for distribution
“It’s a cultural phenomenon, we’ve been preparing for it for years,” Charlotte Massicault, director of multimedia products at Fnac-Darty, told AFP. The group anticipates a significant influx on its site on Thursday, when pre-orders open.
According to several estimates, the development cost of “GTA VI” would be between 1 and 2 billion dollars, which would make it the most expensive product in the history of entertainment, including cinema.
According to Piers Harding-Rolls, “GTA VI” should also revive console sales, which have been struggling for several months, in particular due to an increase in prices linked to the increase in the costs of memory chips.
The opening of pre-orders for GTA VI this Thursday marks the start of a countdown towards a global launch which is already shaping up to be a major turning point for the video game industry and, more broadly, for the entire entertainment sector.
