Studios are often overjoyed and send out press releases when they reach one million copies sold, and new ones follow every time a milestone is passed. Perhaps we should be glad that Rockstar doesn’t operate that way, because they’re on a whole different level than everyone else.
In their latest quarterly report, they’ve now reported sales figures for Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 – and as usual, the results are mind-boggling. Even though Rockstar’s games sell in droves on an ongoing basis, the anticipation surrounding Grand Theft Auto VI has provided an extra boost, and since the last quarterly report (these figures cover January-March), five million copies have been sold. Admittedly, that’s the same number as the previous quarter (October-December), but that figure includes both Black Friday and the Christmas shopping season. In total, the world’s second best-selling game now stands at 230 million units sold.
But why be satisfied with that? The results for Red Dead Redemption 2 are almost even more impressive. The game is more or less treated as “abandonware” since Rockstar consistently refuses to release it for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, or Switch 2. The only version released other than for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (from 2018) and PC (from 2019) is a version for Stadia from November 2019. Furthermore, Rockstar has essentially discontinued online support for the game since 2022.
Much to Rockstar’s chagrin (one can only assume), it just keeps selling at a breakneck pace of one million copies a month and has now reached a total of 85 million copies sold. This means that Red Dead Redemption 2 has achieved something almost unbelievable. It has surpassed Wii Sports and is now the world’s third-best-selling game of all time.
The only titles ahead of Arthur Morgan’s adventure are now Grand Theft Auto V and Minecraft. However, these two titles have been out for 13 and 15 years, respectively, and are available in a wide variety of formats – while Red Dead Redemption 2, as mentioned, is only available on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
That said, what do you think? Which of these two games is actually better, Grand Theft Auto V or Red Dead Redemption 2? And what do you think of Rockstar’s treatment of the latter?
