Update: 17.5 million units! - Grand Theft Auto V Smashes Global Week One Sales Record

[Attoyou]

Shadow1980 said:
It just goes to show you how big gaming has gotten. While a game selling a million copies isn't a big deal anymore, at one point it was considered exceptional, but now it's commonplace. Back in the early 90s, Super Mario Bros. 3 became the first non-bundled game ever to breach 10 million copies sold, and it did so by a wide margin, selling 18 million copies. It was another few years before another non-bundled game would sell over 10 million copies, that game being Super Mario 64 (Gran Turismo would also go on to sell over 10 million). But SMB3's status as best-selling game ever wasn't beaten until GTA: San Andreas, which was the first game released that would go on to sell over 20 million copies. GTA3, GTA: Vice City, and Gran Turismo 3 & 4 all sold over 10 million copies as well. But this generation saw a huge increase in the number of games that sold over 10 million copies, as well as several games that have sold over 20 million, and the first non-bundled title to sell over 30 million: Mario Kart Wii. Now GTA5 looks like it might go on to be the second game to sell over 30 million, and could become the new all-time best-seller. We've gone from 500 million NES cartridges to some 2-½ billion discs sold combined between the Wii, PS3, and 360. That's huge.

An excellent and informative post.