The first two games were big back then, but nowhere near as huge as the later titles. I remember how the series blow up a few weeks after the release of III. Before it was a franchise known to core gamers, but now it became something that everyone knew about because of the huge amount of controversy that was created by the mainstream media.

GTA was pretty underground until the third game came out. I first heard about the series in '99 when a buddy introduced me to the first one, then shortly after that GTA 2 came out. They were fun for awhile but got old fast. For comparative purposes, games like Driver 1 & 2 and the Twisted Metal series were much more popular at the time.

Then I remember seeing previews for GTA3 in late '00 / early '01, and I remember thinking damn, this game looks ridiculous. And I remember all the controversy surrounding the game leading up to its released (being pushed back by about a month or so because of 9/11, among other things). But I don't think anyone could have predicted how huge the game would be in terms of both sales and impact on the industry.

What I don't get is why people keep saying that GTA 3 was this life saver of the ps2's when the playstations biggest brand released half the year earlier and sold almost 2 million more copies lifetime? I don't see how people can say that 'It has to be singlehandedly one of the major reasons the PS2 was so successful...' making it seem like the ps2 wouldn't have been so stupidly successful without it, despite the fact that sony's big hitter has already hit the market and is taking the industry by storm. Did it help? yeah but it also came out in a year where there was 4 other 5 mill+ sellers (GT3 @ 14.98m, FFX @ 8.05m MGS2 @6.05m and Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex @ 5.42m) that really got the playstation going

^What is PlayStation's biggest brand? You surely can't be talking about GT?

Of course, 1st and 3rd best selling games of the generation before the ps2 ended up being 3rd and 5th best selling games of the ps2 and likely to be similar again for the ps3 really struggling to think of a bigger brand on playstation that's consistently pulled its weight and helped sell the playstation brand.

It is GT by far.

GT in PS: Over 20 million
GT in PS2: Over 29 million
GT in PS3: Over 16 million and counting

the dreamcast introduced me to GTA 2. damn it was fun!

I could not imagine playing GTA like this again. Thats what retro city rampage is for. :)

^Didn't Mario 64 sell more?

I measure the popularity of a video game back then by how many people were playing it at PC clubs that I used to frequent. EVERYONE knew GTA 2 back then, everyone at school that had a PC and was playing games also traded GTA 2 like nobody's business and if you ever found a gamer to discuss with then the game would not be far from the discussion. So yeah...it was insanely popular as far as I'm concerned and as far as the gaming communities around here were concerned. In Romania console gaming didn't exactly take off in the late 90s...someone with an N64 or a PSX was an exceptionally lucky gamer.
As such, the gaming culture here, for us in our mid-twenties now, is radically different from most of the internet. We remember games like GTA 2, Carmageddon, Midtown Madness, Age of Empires with the same fondness most people on the internet remember Mario 64 or random Zelda games.

Ethomaz I know GT is Sonys biggest ip but he included GT sold more than GTA 3 and I'm sure he is incorrect.