The gaming industry has made a wide space for GTA 6 (save for one brave developer), electing to release games either well before or after the November 19 launch date chosen by developer Rockstar Games and parent company Take-Two Interactive.
With the release date now seemingly rock-solid, speculation is shifting to the launch sales levels the long-awaited game can achieve. Popular core gamer board ResetEra recently started a poll on this very topic, and out of 1,283 voters, the majority (over 56%) believes day-one sales will be between 12 and 20 million units. However, Piper Sandler, an investment bank with a research division, has just released a note predicting that GTA 6 could sell more than twice that amount: over 45 million units.
It's certainly a bold prediction, and Piper Sandler arrived at this estimate using a peculiar model: historical subreddit weekly visitor data, which are then turned into a 'multiplier' based on r/GTA6 subreddit traffic. This model looks at two different snapshots: the estimated weekly r/GTA6 visitors at launch and the subreddit’s current weekly visitors about five months before launch, then applies historical multipliers from earlier game launches to turn that traffic into a sales estimate.
In the first version, they assume r/GTA6 reaches about 1.3 million weekly visitors at launch and apply a 35x multiplier, yielding roughly 46 million units sold. In the second version, they use the subreddit’s current level of about 870,000 weekly visitors and a 53x median multiplier, which also lands at about 46 million units. Since both methods converge on the same number, they treat 46 million as the best estimate. The analysts argue that the subreddit's visitor growth assumption is not extreme: the jump from roughly 900K now to 1.3M at launch would be about 49%, which they call conservative, given that the historical sample saw average visitor counts rise by 71% over a similar period.
Piper Sandler's method also analyzed past game launches and found that subreddit visitor counts correlated strongly with launch sales. For the launch-time sample, they report a correlation of about 94%, leading them to use a median multiplier of roughly 35x. For the five-month pre-launch sample, the correlation is lower but still solid at about 73%, with a median multiplier of roughly 53x. Games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Witcher 3 produced very high multipliers, around 150x or more, while other anticipated launches like Starfield and Spider-Man 2 sat near the bottom at around 9x and 13x. In other words, GTA 6 is not being treated as a statistical outlier; instead, the report argues that it has a large enough audience that a fairly ordinary multiplier still yields an enormous launch number.
The report includes a detailed table analyzing 18 AAA game launches over the last 8 years. Piper Sandler found that the average multiple for subreddit subscribers to launch unit sales estimates is 76x, with a median of 35.5x.
| Game | Release Date | Genre | Launch Est (MM) | 3 Mo Est (MM) | 1 Yr Est (MM) | Reddit Weekly Visitors at Launch (000) | Subs Multiplier at Launch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zelda: Breath of the Wild | 3/3/2017 | Open World | 1.6 | 6.7 | 9.0 | 14.3 | 112.1x |
| PUBG: Battlegrounds | 12/20/2017 | Shooter | 20.0 | 30.0 | 50.0 | 392.2 | 51.0x |
| Monster Hunter: World | 1/26/2018 | Action RPG | 4.8 | 8.0 | 12.0 | 110.1 | 43.6x |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 10/26/2018 | Open World | 17.0 | 23.0 | 26.5 | 108.0 | 157.4x |
| Animal Crossing: New Horizons | 3/20/2020 | Sandbox | 5.0 | 13.4 | 26.0 | 342.2 | 14.6x |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 10/10/2020 | Open World | 13.0 | 14.0 | 16.0 | 531.0 | 24.5x |
| Elden Ring | 2/25/2022 | Action RPG | 10.0 | 13.4 | 17.0 | 295.0 | 33.9x |
| Pokémon Scarlet / Violet | 11/18/2022 | Action RPG | 10.0 | 16.0 | 22.0 | 66.3 | 150.8x |
| Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom | 5/12/2023 | Open World | 10.0 | 17.0 | 20.6 | 138.0 | 72.5x |
| Diablo IV | 6/6/2023 | Action RPG | 5.0 | 10.0 | 15.0 | 301.0 | 16.6x |
| Baldur's Gate 3 | 8/3/2023 | Action RPG | 5.5 | 10.0 | 20.0 | 192.0 | 28.6x |
| Starfield | 9/6/2023 | RPG | 6.0 | 7.0 | 8.0 | 650.2 | 9.2x |
| Black Myth: Wukong | 8/20/2024 | Action RPG | 10.0 | 22.0 | 28.0 | 26.3 | 379.9x |
| Monster Hunter Wilds | 2/28/2025 | Action RPG | 8.0 | 10.0 | 14.0 | 931.7 | 8.6x |
| Marvel's Spider-Man 2 | 10/20/2023 | Action Adv | 4.0 | 8.0 | 11.0 | 309.5 | 12.9x |
| Helldivers 2 | 2/8/2024 | Shooter | 4.0 | 12.0 | 15.0 | 108.0 | 37.0x |
| God of War: Ragnarök | 11/9/2022 | Action Adv | 5.1 | 11.0 | 15.0 | 254.8 | 20.0x |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 5/19/2025 | Action RPG | 4.0 | 6.0 | 10.0 | 20.6 | 194.2x |
| Average | 7.9 | 13.2 | 18.6 | 266.2 | 76.0x | ||
| Median | 5.8 | 11.5 | 15.5 | 223.4 | 35.5x | ||
| Grand Theft Auto 6 | 11/19/2026 | Open World | TBD | TBD | TBD | 900.0 | TBD |
If we look at historical data, though, over 45 million units seems a bit excessive. Grand Theft Auto V registered 11.21 million copies sold on launch day; granted, that was 2013, and the franchise has gotten a lot bigger since thanks to GTA Online. There's also enormous hype due to the 13-year wait; on the other hand, the console install base of GTA 6 is around 20 million units lower than what GTA 5 had at its disposal when it launched. Moreover, while there may still be a few million Grand Theft Auto fans who haven't upgraded to a Gen-9 console yet, they might now face a console sticker shock price tag of $1,000 if RAM prices continue to climb. Both Sony and Microsoft have increased prices for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S and X, and it could happen again before the game's launch.
Anyway, let's roll with Piper Sandler's high-end prediction for a minute. If GTA 6 really sold around 46 million units, it would almost recoup its nearly $3 billion in estimated development costs on launch day. If the game were priced at $70, it would generate $3.22 billion; if priced at $80, it would generate $3.68 billion. Granted, that's gross revenue; given Sony and Microsoft's 30% platform tax, the net revenue would be $2.254 billion or $2.576 billion, respectively.
Even so, it would be an unprecedented achievement, making it far and away the biggest launch of an entertainment product in history.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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