Pre-orders for Rockstar Games’ upcoming open-world action-adventure game, GTA VI, have “vastly” surpassed parent company Take-Two Interactive’s internal forecasts.
In a recent interview with investigative journalist Jason Schreier, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick was asked about pre-order statistics for GTA VI. In response, while he declined to share actual numbers, he termed them as “exceptional,” saying they were much higher than internal forecasts and had “vastly” beaten them. The company opened pre-orders for Grand Theft Auto VI on June 25, 2026, giving the company more than a month of data to assess demand ahead of the game’s November 19, 2026, release.
As for why he couldn’t share concrete numbers, Zelnick explained that Take-Two Interactive cannot yet determine exactly what the extraordinary pre-order demand means for the GTA VI’s eventual sales. “We can’t tell whether they mean anything,” he said, adding that the demand could represent sales being pulled forward rather than an indication that the game will ultimately sell more copies than previously expected. He clarified that the company has never experienced a demand curve quite like this before. “I’ve reminded people that we simply don’t know the demand curve because it’s just never happened before,” he said. He also cautioned that releasing pre-order figures could potentially create misleading expectations among investors.
A huge pre-order total does not necessarily mean GTA VI will sell an equally extraordinary number of additional copies at launch. As Schreier explained, consumers who would otherwise have purchased the game on launch day could simply be buying it earlier because anticipation is so high. That said, the unprecedented enthusiasm surrounding GTA VI pre-orders does suggest that it may become one of the biggest entertainment launches ever. Trailers for the next Grand Theft Auto title have broken YouTube records, while its predecessor, GTA V, has already sold more than 230 million copies.
