Following up on San Andreas sales expectations we reported on previously, we now have some hard numbers to finally crunch down on.
San Andreas has broken the first-week sales record for videogames in the UK. San Andreas sold approximately 677,000 copies, Beating the previous record holder, Vice City, which sold 250,000 in its opening week. This information comes from UK research body Chart-Track, who estimates that Rockstar and Take2 have already made £24 million on sales in the UK.
In gross revenue terms, the game would have generated around UKP 24 million in the UK alone over the weekend, and projected across the world that figure could be as much as UKP 106 million, or put in international currency terms, $195.5 million or 153.97 Euro. Put in context, if a movie were to gross that much at the box office, it would instantly be classed among the all-time greats – that’s how big Rockstar’s game has become.
– GamesIndustry.biz, November
Yahoo reports on videogame rentals for the week from October 26th to October 31st. Apparently San Andreas broke through big time in videogame rentals, collecting $1,627,351 in its first week in rentals only. We have yet to see a press statement for actual sales figures for the US.
“Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” out-rented all other video game titles in its first week of release earning an unprecedented $1.6 million in consumer rental revenue for the week ending October 31, 2004, according to game intelligence from Rentrak’s Home Video Essentials(TM).
The Take2 stock numbers are not looking as good as people would guess with these immense sales, though. Take2 (NASDAQ: TTWO) has been trading at a steady $30-34 for a while, yet the stock slumped down to $31 on the eve of San Andreas release, but has since come back to just over $34, and at the time of writing TTWO is valued at $34.61. More info at Yahoo finance.