Analysts Project GTA 6 Will Generate a Whopping $3 Billion in Its First Year!

Grand Theft Auto VI is among the most awaited video games of 2025, and one market analysis group is convinced it is set to establish new sales records. DFC Intelligence, the most established market research firm in the video games sector, anticipates that Rockstar’s newest installment will sell millions of copies within its first year, with total revenue exceeding $3 billion.

GTA 6 will be launched in a market resembling the scenario seen when Rockstar debuted GTA V in 2013. For instance, Sony and Xbox have approximately the same sales for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S units — 66 million and 28 million, respectively — similar to the number of PS4, PS3, Xbox 360, and Xbox One consoles available at the time GTA V was launched. Nevertheless, DFC posits that the success of GTA V over the last decade will contribute to stronger initial sales once Rockstar finally unveils GTA VI.

“GTA V has a sales history spanning 11 years, and revenues actually rose in Years 7, 8, and 9, reaching around $1 billion in both Years 8 and 9,” DFC’s founder David Cole informed GLHF. “Due to this sustained success, we anticipate that GTA VI will experience a quicker launch. Sales should exceed $1 billion before it is officially released through pre-orders.”

DFC predicts that GTA VI will accumulate an additional $2.2 billion in sales within its first year, concluding in November 2026.

The market research company Circana recently published a collection of sales statistics that illustrate the extent of GTA V’s prolonged success. While previous games from Rockstar quickly exited the annual top-selling charts post-launch, GTA V stayed within the top 10 for four years after its initial release. The $1 billion mentioned by Cole in GTA V’s eighth and ninth years aligns with a significant resurgence in sales during the COVID-19 pandemic, prior to a decline again in 2023.

Alongside GTA V, Rockstar also launched GTA Online, a live-service Grand Theft Auto title that, despite a troubled start with technical issues and missing features, drew in hundreds of thousands of players — and until 2022, it required a copy of GTA V to access.

In addition to the heightened interest in GTA Online, DFC believes that Rockstar will follow the same pattern as with GTA V by releasing updated editions of GTA VI when new next-generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft are introduced. The firm anticipates a surge in sales when this occurs, potentially in the game’s third or fourth year, and by the close of its fifth year, DFC forecasts 100 million copies of GTA VI sold. In comparison, Rockstar sold 200 million copies of GTA V over 11 years.

Rockstar intends to debut GTA VI sometime in fall 2025 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. A lack of updates since December 2023 has sparked speculation regarding a delay in mid-2024, although several Rockstar developers informed Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier that they had not been informed of any delays.