GTA 6 Crosses $1 Billion Pre-Orders

Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6) has generated $1.18 billion in pre-orders prior to its November 19 release, though analysts warn that the monumental success may not stem the decline in console sales. According to Sensor Tower, the game has amassed 12 million pre-orders, surpassing the 7 million pre-orders collected for Grand Theft Auto V in 2013, as reported by Forbes.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick expressed this week that pre-orders are "tracking far above our initial expectations." The game is priced at $80 for the Standard Edition and $100 for the Ultimate Edition, marking it as the most expensive launch in the series. GTA 6 is exclusive to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, both of which have increased in price due to the rising costs of memory chips, now ranging from $599 to $899.

The rise in console prices, attributed to the increasing demand for AI-related components, has made the entry fee for new players between $580 and $1,000. US spending on gaming hardware dropped by 9 percent to $2.9 billion between January and September, with Xbox Series sales declining by 27 percent. Experts predict that GTA 6 will only provide a modest boost to console sales, stating that the year has been a challenging one for hardware. For gamers in Pakistan, the global price hikes exacerbate the cost of playing GTA 6 on PS5.