Ranked against the biggest releases of the last six years, GTA VI does not look like a game that is about to launch alongside them. It looks like a game running its own race.
That is the short version of new Sensor Tower data reported by GamesIndustry.biz on October 20. Comparing preorder trajectories, GTA VI is reportedly 148% ahead of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 at the same distance from launch. Modern Warfare 2 was not a modest benchmark. It went on to post an $800 million opening weekend, then the biggest launch in Call of Duty history, until Black Ops 6 reportedly took that crown in 2024.
The same analysis puts specific counts behind the gap. Sensor Tower estimates GTA VI had been preordered 6.08 million times as of October 13, worth roughly $594 million. It splits those orders 74% PlayStation to 26% Xbox, and says the large majority landed on the $99.99 Ultimate Edition rather than the $79.99 standard version.
Those numbers come with a fence around them, and the fence matters more than the headline. Sensor Tower's comparison covers digital preorders in the United States only. No boxed copies, no European markets, no tracked sales outside the US digital storefronts. So "148% ahead" describes a US digital slice, not the global order book. Rockstar and Take-Two have not published a single preorder figure of their own, and they have not confirmed any part of this analysis.
Nothing in the report should be read as Take-Two raising guidance or Rockstar declaring a sales record. It is an independent analytics firm modeling storefront data, passed through a specialist trade outlet. Treat the shape of it as useful and the precision as approximate.
The shape is still worth staring at, because it fits a pattern that has been building for months. In August, the same tracking source put the Ultimate Edition at roughly 89% of measured preorders. Now, with the count six million plus, the premium share is still described as the vast majority. That is unusual durability for an edition split. Normally the cheaper version closes the gap as launch approaches and casual buyers arrive. Here the expensive version has held the lead through the entire preorder window.
That tells you something about who is buying right now. These are not undecided shoppers kicking the tires. They are people who decided the game was a day-one purchase years ago and are simply picking the version that feels like the full experience. Early preorder data always skews toward the most committed fans, which inflates both the premium share and the enthusiasm of the customer base being measured.
The platform split is the other number worth pinning down. A 74-26 PlayStation-to-Xbox gap will get quoted as proof that one console is winning GTA VI. It is not that. Sensor Tower's data tracks digital US preorders, and consoles are not evenly distributed in that market. Sony has published PS5 sales past 95 million units. Microsoft stopped publishing Xbox hardware numbers years ago. When the install base itself is lopsided, the preorder split mostly reflects where the players are, not a preference discovered on launch day.
Xbox's Matthew Ball pushed back on exactly that framing in September, telling The Verge's Tom Warren that Xbox's internal analysis showed its GTA VI preorder share matching its own share of the console market. That claim was narrower than the headlines around it, but it made the same point this data implies: a platform split is only interesting next to the install base behind it.
Where this leaves the confirmed record is straightforward. GTA VI is scheduled for November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X and S. Rockstar has announced a Standard Edition at $79.99 and an Ultimate Edition at $99.99, with preorders open since the fall and preload dated for November 12. Those are the facts on the record. The 6.08 million units, the $594 million, the 148% gap and the 74-26 split are estimates from one analytics firm measuring one market's digital orders.
For a launch this size, that is not a small caveat. It is the difference between a data point and a headline that turns into a fake historical record. Coverage will be full of giant numbers between now and November. The useful question for every one of them is not whether the number feels plausible. It is who measured it, what they measured, and whether Rockstar or Take-Two ever put their name on it.
So far, on GTA VI preorders, neither company has said anything at all.