After Take-Two’s financial report last week, there was a slight yet noticeable shift in the power dynamics within the list of best-selling video games.
Last quarter, Red Dead Redemption 2’s sales doubled the usual rate, reaching 4 million copies instead of two. This allowed the western-themed game, now at 61,000,000 copies sold, to comfortably overtake the classic Super Mario Bros. and inch closer to Mario Kart 8 (including its Deluxe version), becoming the seventh most successful game in history. If RDR 2 maintains at least a pace of three million copies every quarter, it stands a chance of reaching the sixth position by the end of the year. A drop back to 2 million copies sold is likely, especially since the last period was the holiday season when sales typically increase, potentially pushing this achievement to 2025. Theoretically, climbing even higher, into the top-5, is possible. Two years ago, PUBG became free and will no longer improve its sales figures. Will the latest game from Rockstar manage to achieve more?
GTA 5, with its steady 20 million copies sold annually, is expected to reach 200,000,000 by May. This provides a neat alignment: Tetris by EA at a hundred million, “the fifth” at two hundred million, and Minecraft at three hundred million. It’s unlikely for the decade-old game to climb to the very top, but the next installment has all the possibilities. GTA 6, set for release next year, is sure to set both imaginable and unimaginable records. The only question is how quickly “the sixth” will be able to dethrone “Minecraft”.
| Place | Game | Number of Copies Sold | Release Date |
| 1 | Minecraft | 300 000 000 | November 18, 2011 |
| 2 | GTA 5 | 195 000 000 | September 17, 2013 |
| 3 | Tetris (EA) | 100 000 000 | September 12, 2006 |
| 4 | Wii Sports | 82 900 000 | November 19, 2006 |
| 5 | PUBG: Battlegrounds | 75 000 000 | December 20, 2017 |
| 6 | Mario Kart 8 + Deluxe | 69 040 000 | May 29, 2014 |
| 7 | RDR 2 | 61 000 000 | October 26, 2018 |
| 8 | Super Mario Bros. | 58 000 000 | September 13, 1985 |
Also in the list of the 50 best-selling games are two more parts of the series. At 28th place is GTA: San Andreas — 27,500,000, and at 36th place, sharing it with Cyberpunk 2077, is GTA 4 — 25,000,000. Both games’ paths upward are blocked — the first has been discontinued, and the second no longer shows significant growth to be noteworthy by the rights holder. However, “the fourth” might have a chance to climb higher if the developers eventually release a remaster/remake (its sales would aggregate with those of the original).
There’s also a list of best-selling video game franchises, which aggregates sales within a series. Grand Theft Auto with its 420,000,000 copies is fifth. However, with the release of GTA 6, it will definitely move past Call of Duty (which is ahead by 5 million) and Pokémon and Tetris (480 and 495 million respectively), making it quite feasible to reach second place. But going further… Mario leads with over 800 million copies sold. Red Dead with 86,000,000 is twenty-seventh. Entering the “100 million and more” club is quite possible. Interestingly, no other IP from R* appears on this list, except for “Lemmings” (20,000,000), the famous creation of DMA Design before its transformation into Rockstar North.
Source: gta.com.ua