GTA Online made Rockstar Games nearly $500m, yes half a billion, in just 12 months nearly 10 years on according to a new report. This comes after Take-Two Interactive recently announced GTA V had passed 185 million copies sold.
Insane money making
In a new article by The Wall Street Journal, the outlet discusses why investing in Take-Two right now is a good idea ahead of GTA 6 releasing. The article states analysts at Visible Alpha estimate “Grand Theft Auto Online generated nearly $500 million in Take-Two’s most recent fiscal year”.
To put this into perspective, GTA Online generated at least $500m, the same amount, between October 2013 and April 2016. What GTA Online did in the last 12 months or so is what it did almost 3 years since launch.
This number is purely microtransactions in the form of Shark Cards and GTA+ subscriptions, not copies of GTA V being sold. Given the game sells on average 5 million copies of the game every 3 months, Rockstar is doing just fine.
That is an incredible feat given how the game is about to turn 10 years old. It’s no wonder why Rockstar and Take-Two continue supporting this game and GTA 6 remains deep into development.
The WSJ’s article goes onto say how now is a good time to buy stock in Take-Two based on GTA V’s previous timeframe from announcement to release. There’s a growing expectation an announcement of GTA 6 will come in the next few months with a release in 2025.
Red Dead Redemption 3?
WSJ also seem to think the next Red Dead Redemption could also be announced in the coming couple of years. “The coming cycle could also include announcements of new sequels for some of Take-Two’s other major franchises, such as Red Dead and BioShock.”
We feel that this is very optimistic. Whilst Red Dead 2 has done wonders for Take-Two who would probably want a sequel asap, Rockstar are fully focused on GTA 6. We are likely still 2 years away from getting GTA VI in our hands so RDR3 is a distant dream.
Even GTA 6 feels that way, given it has been nearly 10 years since the previous instalment. The time gap between Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead 2’s announcement also took 7 years to happen. We’re only 4 years since RDR2 released.
As a franchise, Red Dead Redemption has now sold over 79 million copies total. Red Dead Redemption 2 makes up more than half of that with 55 million copies sold worldwide since its release in 2018.
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