what are the signs though? lol. this is where i am confused. i must be missing something. 

i got gta 5 used on ps4 and ive never played it. i platinum'd gta 4 on ps3 though. it was fun. 

im just still skeptical about all this. i cant really pinpoint it. something just tells me its going to underperform. 

thats definitely true. they figured out they can take the same game and pass it off as a new release so long as new consoles are coming out. they will release it on ps5 and then release it again on ps6 and basically all these people will double dip. so yes, i understand it will sell many.

Since the industry shifted to digital storefronts and endless remakes, I've kind of stopped caring. The numbers are all fudged, imo. Back in the day, when things were confined to their generations, it was a lot easier to figure out which games have the biggest impact. Now, not so much.

It's going to do better than RDR2 at least but underperform in this context is a really weird way to put it. It doesn't need triple dips and GTA5 numbers to make billions, it just needs the same dedicated online base and online grind to drive shark cards. I know what you are feeling cauese I felt it too, a bland experience it would seem and the economy is weird but It could be a complete dud in story and still succeed as a sandbox online, add in grind with good mechanics and it's gonna make billions. 

Not that it needs online either. RDR2 made billions with very little online activity. GtA6 is at half a billion in preorders already. 

.

The latest launch trailer from GTA VI has passed 66M views in just 11 days. That's more views than GoW Laufey, Call of Duty, Pokemon Wind and Waves, Ocarina of Time, and Fable combined in less than two weeks. 

The advertising spots it has also puts it beyond other products. What other game would be able to justify a Netflix drop? What other game would be popular enough that the Miami Heat decided to do a Vice City theme night? Rockstar got away with locking single player content behind the ultimate edition, and that ultimate edition happens to be the best selling game since pre orders opened up.

How would digital storefronts "fudge" sales numbers lol? 

They don't count F2P downloads or games available on subscriptions as actual unit sales if that's what you think. They can't exactly lie about sales numbers/revenue figures. 

yeah. those are all very good points. this is basically what i was wondering. had no idea that miami heat dedicated a night to gta lol my goodness man. 

im not so sure he is saying the numbers are fudged or lied about as much as he is saying that back when there was no online, games were put on a disc or cartridge and shipped off in that one static form, and the sales could be used as a proxy for how much impact it had in gaming as a whole. in other words, you could read some sort of meaning in the sales. these days, with 3 editions at launch and deluxe editions years later of everything in the game with bugs fixed, subscription services, microtransactions, everything being tied to online and everything that comes with that, it becomes much harder to read anything meaningful into the numbers in terms of impact or importance. that is my generous interpretation, and if that is what he is saying, i can see that. i mean lets be honest, how much money is being generated by gta from kids stealing their parents credit cards and running up charges? lol. probably a good amount. what does that mean in the grand scheme of things? well, that rockstar got more money. thats about it. 

You interpreted it perfectly! Well done! lol

Digital storefronts, BC, and remasters mean games never go away. They span two, sometimes three or more generations, whereas older games were usually confined to a five-year run. This entirely shifts the goals posts, and it has made sales records more confusing (fudged). At least imo.

And that's not even getting into concurrent players, or how many times a game has been played. If you try to parse that in... yeesh.