A surge in sales for both consoles, but who will come out on top?
It’s still far too early to tell, but there’s a clear indication from retail that the release of Grand Theft Auto IV yesterday has caused a surge in sales of both the Xbox 360 and PS3.It’s no big surprise when you consider that the epic crime adventure has a huge fan base and previous iterations of the series have sold millions of copies world-wide. The anticipation for Rockstar’s title has reached fever pitch over the last few weeks, but which console will sell the most as a result?
GTA IV is arguably the biggest-named release on the PS3 so far and the series has strong brand association with Playstation. Analysts have predicted that GTA IV should drive sales of both Xbox 360 and PS3 hardware, but Sony may capture as much as 40 percent of the market due to both of these factors.
Early indications suggest that analysts may well be right. Gamestation tell us that since release date it has sold more PS3’s than Xbox 360’s mainly due to its PS3 bundle, whereas Tesco and Asda have also said that consumers have been picking up PS3’s solely for the purpose of playing the title.
However, information gathered from speaking to various high street outlets, including GAME, PC World and HMV suggests that it could swing either way, with all reporting hardware sales of both consoles since the GTA IV release.
The only thing we can be sure about is that GTA IV will sell very, very well indeed and the big winner here will be Rockstar. It will be delighted to hear that, on the first day of release, the GTA IV shelves are empty.
Have you bought a console just to play GTA IV? Let us know in the forums.
