GTA 6 Sales Breakdown Leaves Gamers Stunned

Published Aug 16, 2026, 11:30 PM EDT Tom Wilson is a Gaming Features Writer at Screen Rant. Over the past five years, Tom has worked as the Editor-in-Chief at The Game Crater, as a Staff Writer for GamingIntel, a List Writer at TheGamer, and, of course, as a Senior Writer at ScreenRant. Tom has experience writing reviews, guides, news, and features, and has been responsible for teams of writers, training them and editing their work. Tom graduated with a Masters in Multimedia Journalism, and has since gone on to build up his portfolio of games journalism work. Grand Theft Auto 6 will almost certainly be the best-selling game of 2026, even with it releasing during the tail end of the year. Rockstar has all but guaranteed GTA 6's success with a history of incredible titles, a sustained legacy of brilliance through GTA Online, and a pedigree for excellence in open-world design. Considering the relative lack of competition, Grand Theft Auto 6 is all but sure to dominate the charts and hit all of the sales goals Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two Interactive can dream of. However, that doesn't mean it hasn't been immune to controversy over the past few months. From GTA 6 having an expiry date to the physical release being little more than a code in a box, Rockstar has caused quite the uproar. Of course, these are unlikely to have a tangible effect on the game's overall sales, but they do make for interesting discussion surrounding the industry at large. Case in point are GTA 6's Ultimate Edition sales, which have been revealed in a recent breakdown, and they have fans questioning everything. It turns out that Grand Theft Auto 6's Ultimate Edition is selling extremely well. In fact, it's selling so well that it hasn't just blown expectations from analysts out of the water, but also surpassed those of the cheaper regular edition. This is despite the fact that GTA 6's upcoming gameplay reveal still hasn't aired, and fans haven't really seen anything in terms of what the game has to offer, how it'll run, or if it'll even live up to the hype. Of course, to anyone following the Grand Theft Auto 6 discourse, the high sales of the Ultimate Edition shouldn't be too surprising. Rockstar locked a number of key content features behind the Ultimate Edition, ostensibly making it the definitive version of the game, so sales were naturally going to be high. What is turning heads, however, is that, as confirmed in an interview with gamesindustry.biz by senior vice president of digital intelligence firm Sensor Tower, Karl Kontus, 89% of all GTA 6 sales have been the Ultimate Edition. 90% of people have bought the Ultimate Edition on Xbox, and 88.5% on PlayStation. According to Kontus, that's unexpected, as "typical premium shares for games tend to be at around 10–20%." This figure has somewhat been confirmed by Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, who recently shared in an interview with CNBC that preorders are "skewing more to the premium edition." Naturally, these figures have shocked fans a little, who've taken to the internet to share their feelings. Over on a Reddit thread discussing the matter, the original poster, RealGiancarlosR speculated that "Rockstar really wanted this to be a $100 game and offered an $80 option to save face," a sentiment shared by other users like Daftest_of_the_Punks, who wrote "the $100 edition is actually the standard edition and the $80 edition is the GTA 6 “lite”." Some users feel like the higher price tag is somewhat warranted, with TheSwampThing1990 writing that "if any company deserves the $100 it's R*." Other users have also said that they believe that people would have happily paid even more for GTA 6. Some have rightfully pointed out that the high skew towards the Ultimate Edition is likely a result of extremely passionate fans being the only ones likely to buy something before seeing any gameplay, with user twarihay joking: "So you’re saying the fans willing to preorder a digital game months before want the premium edition?" Frankly, there's a very good chance that the Standard Edition will overtake the Ultimate Edition once the gameplay reveal airs, and certainly after GTA 6 launches in November. Of course, all of these figures should be taken with a grain of salt, but it wouldn't be too surprising for Grand Theft Auto 6's Ultimate Edition to set an industry record for the best-selling premium edition of all time. Released November 19, 2026 ESRB Rating Pending - Likely Mature 17+ Developer(s) Rockstar Games Publisher(s) Rockstar Games Engine Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) Multiplayer Online Multiplayer