Grand Theft Auto VI may have opened the strongest preorder campaign ever tracked by gaming-data firm Newzoo, with its first week of digital sales estimated at roughly $260 million worldwide.

Newzoo directly measured approximately $180 million in digital preorder spending across the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain during the final week of June.

Those six markets account for an estimated 69% of Grand Theft Auto V’s lifetime console audience. Newzoo used that regional distribution to calculate a worldwide first-week estimate of approximately $260 million.

The figure is an industry estimate rather than an official sales total released by Rockstar Games or parent company Take-Two Interactive.

Newzoo described the result as the strongest opening to a preorder campaign recorded in its dataset.

The firm also used several historical sales patterns to estimate how GTA 6 could perform by the end of its launch week.

Under its central “proven sequel” model, the opening week of preorders would represent approximately 5.8% of the game’s eventual launch-week revenue.

That scenario places GTA 6 on pace to generate approximately $4.5 billion by the end of launch week, equivalent to around 51 million copies at an assumed average selling price of $88.

Newzoo stressed that the projection depends on which sales curve GTA 6 ultimately follows.

Because demand for the game is unusually high, preorder purchases may be more heavily concentrated near the beginning of the campaign than they are for most major releases. Under a more front-loaded model, the launch-week projection falls closer to $3.3 billion and approximately 37 million copies.

At the higher end of Newzoo’s forecast range, GTA 6 could generate as much as $5.2 billion by the end of launch week.

The firm also pushed back against claims that the game had already earned more than $1 billion through preorders. Newzoo said the available data does not support those reports.

The analysis measures digital spending and uses historical player distribution and preorder behavior to estimate worldwide performance. Rockstar Games and Take-Two have not publicly confirmed an exact GTA 6 preorder total.

Grand Theft Auto VI is scheduled to launch on November 19, 2026, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.