Grand Theft Auto IV/Criticism and Sales

Critical Reception & Sales

Right before release of the game on April 29th, reviews began popping up on numerous websites and magazines. Through these reviews, all of them were very positive, with majority of the press giving out a score of 10/10. Examples of this are from 2 of the internet's most well-known webites, Gamespot and IGN who both gave that perfect score.

As a result of the largely impressive review scores for Grand Theft Auto IV, popularity heightened. Even though the game was leaked for illegal download, days before the real street release date, GTAIV experienced a great amount of sales. As stated by Take Two, first-day sales for the game was over 3.6 million, equivalent to $310 million. In its first week, Grand Theft Auto IV sold over 6 million units globally in its first week, generating income of approximately $500 million. These staggering sales easily beats out Halo 3's first day ($170 million) and week-long ($300 million) sales, who was the last one to hold the record for largest amount of sales in this given time. As Take Two chairman, Strauss Zelnick, stated, "Grand Theft Auto IV's first week performance represents the largest launch in the history of interactive entertainment, and we believe these retail sales levels surpass any movie or music launch to date."