IcaroRibeiro said:
There's no way 45 million people will buy GTA V in its first week
A more realistic estimate would be around 25 million. While GTA V has reportedly "sold" 205 million copies, a significant portion of those are from PC players who never owned consoles, free copies, discounted purchases, and so on. Even in 2014 one and half year after the launch, out of the 45 million copies sold at that time, roughly 25% were re-purchases. GTA fans are well-known for owning multiple copies of the game.
GTA V primarily appeals to casual gamers who enjoy its multiplayer features. If it were free-to-play, it could potentially attract 100 million players. However, being limited to expensive next-gen consoles and launching at a premium price point (likely $80) will significantly cap its initial sales. Once the game launches on PC with better mod support, enhanced multiplayer options, and other updates it's likely to surpass 100 million copies sold. Most of GTA consistent player engagment comes from the fact it's almost like an live service that gets multiple free DLCs, this provides extended shelf life for the game which is how it has been selling so well after that many years |
It's not selling 45 million in a single week. People "wanting" to get it at week 1 =/= opening sales. More than half of them having no current gen console automatically slashes the number down to about half. So your 25 million guess is in fact a tad higher than mine.
GTA6 should sell millions of consoles to PC and PS4/Xbox One gamers who are yet to upgrade. The great majority of PC gamers will wait for the PC version, but a few million of them won't, and a few million are multi-platform gamers already. PC gamers who own or are interested in consoles as secondary platforms won't wait for the PC version.