Analyst: GTAV to Outsell Call of Duty 2013, Sell 18M Units in 6 Months

by William D'Angelo, posted on 01 February 2013 / 4,972 Views

Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia has predicted that Grand Theft Auto V will outsell the 2013 Call of Duty game, according to GamesIndustry International. He expects the game to sell 18 million units in its first six months on the market.

Bhatia estimates that the game has cost Rockstar $137.5 million up to this point in development. He came across this figure by the fact the team has about 250 employees and has been in development for five years.

Rockstar announced this week that Grand Theft Auto V will now be released on September 17, 2013.

9 Comments

MARCUSDJACKSON (on 01 February 2013)

wow that's a pretty penny.

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SwansVanTerif (on 02 February 2013)

Game development has become too expensive.

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Mr Puggsly (on 03 February 2013)

Are you under the illusion every game cost this much? This is one of the biggest franchises in the industry. So its no surprise they're willing to put a lot of money into its development.

miqdadi (on 04 February 2013)

Tooooo Much, Still doesn't guarantee it to outsell COD

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S.Peelman (on 02 February 2013)

$137.5m? That's a lot of money. Too much. As a developer and publisher, you shouldn't even want to spend this much. Even for a game like this. Also, 18m in six months is way too much. Talking 360/PS3 combined, GTA 4 did about 11m in that time. It might outsell that by some amount due to the higher userbase, but not by 7m. 13-14m at the most I'd say, which means it'll probably not outsell CoD 2013's first six months even when that franchise will continue to decline.

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pezus (on 02 February 2013)

The two statements are at odds... It won't outsell CoD 2013 in 2013 unless it sells at least 20m

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thewastedyouth (on 01 February 2013)

has cost Rockstar $137.5 million up to this point DAMN!!!

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mjk45 (on 02 February 2013)

no it's just a guesstimate all he did was multiply 5 years x 250 employees and what ever cost per employee he worked out , as if the game was running full tilt for the whole five years it's a cycle that starts off slow and builds up steam most employees are contracted and used on a needs basis with a smaller core overseeing the complete game , having said that it would still be expensive but not representative of what the average game costs to make , also they have the history to be able to spend that money just has Halo 4 was the most expensive MS game because of the legacy and sales history.