By Ray Ampoloquio · Aug 14, 2026 Updated by Hassan Sajid · Aug 14, 2026 An analyst says GTA 6 could gross $2 billion from pre orders alone, but that would need 25 million pre-orders, up from the current estimates.

According to one analyst, Grand Theft Auto VI could earn back everything it cost to make before a single person actually plays it .

The claim comes from Karl Kontus, Sensor Tower's general manager of video game insights, the same analyst behind the recent finding that nearly nine in ten pre-orders are for the controversial $100 Ultimate Edition . Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz , he speculated that if the next Grand Theft Auto lands somewhere around 25 million pre-orders by launch, it will have ended up making $2 billion in sales all the while we're still pre-loading the game. In his estimate, the figure is enough to cover the game's entire production value, including the majority of its marketing budget.

Normally, a game has to go on sale and actually move copies to earn back what it cost to build, but Kontus is saying that the pre-order cash alone for GTA 6 is enough to put the game in the black before November 19 , which would track if the pre-order estimates really exceeded any and all expectations .

What each scenario for the Grand Theft Auto 6 pre-order numbers could mean.

Of course, this is all theoretical. 3 million pre-orders, which is a far-cry from 25 million. This number will have to grow nearly six times in three months to reach $2 billion.

However, it isn't an impossible number to reach either. Most pre-orders tend to flood in during the final week before launch anyway, so nobody actually knows the total until we are almost on top of it.

Speaking of unknown figures, $2 billion is a projection that's gone around for a while . It was never a confirmed figure. Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive have never said what GTA 6 cost to make, and that $2 billion is gross sales, not what Take-Two actually keeps once the storefronts take their cut.

So, really, as much as we'd love to get a chance to write that GTA 6 "already paid for itself", it's a sentence built on a soft number matched against another unknown.

With all the doubt surrounding GTA 6 , what's not really in question is where it's headed. Even if you haircut Kontus's estimate hard, Cyberpunk 2077 's roughly 8 million pre-orders in 2020 was the previous high-water mark for this sort of thing, and his conservative call is only three times that. We have already run the numbers on how few copies GTA 6 needs to break even and while ginormous, it wouldn't be wise to bet against GTA 6 .

The only real question was and is whether the game sticks the creative landing. Selling was never a problem nor a risk.

If anything, Kontus may be lowballing it. His $2 billion roughly pencils out at the standard price, but with close to 90 percent of pre-orders going for the $100 version , the real haul could run higher. Either way, the number that actually matters still lands on November 19, when we find out how many of those pre-orders were real, and how the game holds up once people are finally allowed to play it.

Ray Ampoloquio Editor and News Writer, GTA BOOM

Ray is a GTA BOOM editor and news writer covering GTA 6, Rockstar and Take-Two, GTA Online and franchise history using primary-source reporting.