Take-Two: GTAIV Sales Split Almost 50/50 Between PS3/360
Grand Theft Auto IVWhen assessing the current console battle, one can always point towards top multiplatform sellers - when the product is mostly identical in quality across the competing consoles - as being good indicators. In this way, it's very interesting to hear about the massive accumulated sales for Grand Theft Auto IV, and how they're split between the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Well, they are split, apparently...almost right down the middle. We don't have the exact numbers but we do have the word straight from the horse's mouth, so-to-speak. During a conference call where Take-Two Interactive reviewed their first-quarter financial results, one analyst asked, "...can you give us an idea as to this 13 million GTA 4 units, how many of those are Xbox 360 platform? So what's the addressable market for the downloadable The Lost and Damned." In reply to the first question, Take-Two CFO said, "It's approximately 50/50, Ed." So, roughly, one can assume that the PS3 and 360 versions of GTAIV each sold equally well, which further begs the question: is it really sensible to have exclusive downloadable content? The current rumor concerning this very subject is that The Lost and Damned will eventually find its way to the PS3, but not until some time next year. GTA fans that are also PS3 owners and who don't own a 360 aren't happy about the situation, but there's little we can really do about it. Take-Two is obviously aware of the split in sales regarding the PS3/360 versions of GTAIV, so maybe now that it's staring at them in black and white, they'll do something about it.
As for the split itself, one has to remember that when the game launched in late April of last year, the user base gap between the PS3 and 360 was very large, and Sony certainly hadn't sold 22 million units as they have now. Therefore, it stands to reason that perhaps the blockbuster franchise garnered most of its fans during its exclusive PS2 days, and that remaining lot has caused the 50/50 split despite the PS3/360 gap (which is closing, but still separated by about 7 million units). It's just a theory, though. If you want to read the entire transcript for Take-Two's earnings call, feel free...it's a little long, but still interesting for business-oriented minds.
Related Game(s): Grand Theft Auto IV
3/11/2009 Ben Dutka
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Comments (33 posts)
Deleted User
Sunday, March 15, 2009 @ 12:54:17 PM
0 up, 1 down
crapreviews
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 11:17:02 AM
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4 up, 0 down
LimitedVertigo
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 11:26:13 AM
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1 up, 1 down
englishgolfer
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 12:01:05 PM
16 up, 0 down
Alienange
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 9:09:54 PM
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DragonSphere
Thursday, March 12, 2009 @ 1:34:58 AM
Seems like the majority of those who bought it already owned one of the current gen systems.
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noshownogo
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 11:27:49 AM
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1 up, 0 down
coverton341
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 11:41:34 AM
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McWhoopin
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 12:06:12 PM
mmmmmmmm cake...
1 up, 0 down
BTNwarrior
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 12:40:57 PM
3 up, 0 down
Jed
Thursday, March 12, 2009 @ 1:28:45 AM
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isaya85
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 11:49:48 AM
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PSN ID Biggest_GMoney
3 up, 0 down
kidgrid
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 11:59:41 AM
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3 up, 1 down
McWhoopin
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 12:04:13 PM
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The 360 has (and possibly still does... I don't really know) a 30% failure rate and from a first hand perspective (worked in retail where we sold PS3's & 360's) quite a few people just go out and buy a new console rather than try to get the warranty work done through Microsoft. When I asked people if this was their first console, they said over half the time that they are just replacing their RROD console. Now this could just be that the city of Edmonton got a larger percent of defective 360's than everyone else on the planet but I am thinking that this is just the average. So lets just play with the numbers for a sec.... you have approximately 30 million 360's. We will even be nice and give them a 25% failure rate. That would be 7.5 million RROD 360's and we will even be nice and only have half of them buy new ones instead of trying to fix them so that would make it about 3.75 million 360's. That would only make it about a 3 million console difference between the 360 and the PS3.
Also, regarding the people who own both the 360 and PS3. We all know people who bought the 360 when it first launched and as soon as they got their PS3, they stopped playing with their 360 all together. Personally I know of a half dozen of my friends who are in that boat. For me that percentage is very high, but lets say about 10% of the 360's aren't used at all. So that would be another 3 million people are off the 360 software buying list. That now makes it 7 million less 360's than their total console sales which would bring it back down to the number of PS3 users.
It is entirely possible that these numbers are wrong, in fact I can probably gurantee it, but it does beg the question, how many 360's are actually out there. A game like GTA4 being as popular as it is should have sold more on the 360 than the PS3 but if it was about 50/50, then maybe the real console numbers are closer than they are telling us.
7 up, 0 down
McWhoopin
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 2:07:07 PM
2 up, 0 down
Ben Dutka PSXE [Administrator]
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 2:18:14 PM
As for the part about new PS3 owners abandoning their 360, I can't agree with that. Sure, I play my PS3 more often, but I have my 360 for the same reason I had the original Xbox: for the exclusives, and those tend to come on a semi-frequent basis. I dropped everything on the PS3 to play Gears 2, for example. I'll probably do it again when stuff like Alan Wake and Gears 3 comes out.
I think it comes down to what you bought the systems for in the first place.
3 up, 1 down
Alienange
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 9:15:03 PM
0 up, 0 down
Jed
Thursday, March 12, 2009 @ 1:31:20 AM
1 up, 0 down
Deleted User
Sunday, March 15, 2009 @ 12:51:50 PM
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Cpt_Geez
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 12:20:53 PM
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Deleted User
Sunday, March 15, 2009 @ 12:48:16 PM
0 up, 1 down
Sir Shak
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 1:56:37 PM
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5 up, 0 down
buck
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 2:43:07 PM
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Last edited by buck on 3/11/2009 2:48:03 PM
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Deleted User
Sunday, March 15, 2009 @ 12:47:30 PM
PS3 20,979,396
X360 29,103,973
But those are cold hard numbers friend(+/- 10 percent)
0 up, 1 down
buck
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 2:43:55 PM
Reply
Last edited by buck on 3/11/2009 2:48:46 PM
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N a S a H
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 2:48:46 PM
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WorldEndsWithMe
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 4:34:59 PM
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Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 3/11/2009 4:35:10 PM
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LimitedVertigo
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 8:50:45 PM
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Alienange
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 9:22:20 PM
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Oh, and UT3 2.0 patch is out today and it's friggin' cool. That's a PS3 exclusive for ya.
0 up, 0 down
PS3_Wizard
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Wednesday, March 11, 2009 @ 11:14:31 AM