Pre-orders kicked off for Grand Theft Auto VI, and although no one should ever pre-order a game, especially one that’s digital-only, that’s exactly what tons of people have seemingly done. While there’s no official data on how well the game has already sold months ahead of its actual launch, anecdotal data points have sprung up, including one from IGN claiming GTA VI on PlayStation 5 is outselling the Xbox Series X/S version by a very wide margin.
“Through IGN Finds’ and commerce affiliate linking program, the data is showing that PlayStation is outperforming Xbox by a rate of 8-to-1,” the outlet revealed on X on June 26. It seems like IGN was totaling up all of its readers who pre-ordered the game through an affiliate link, tracking for which allowed it to see which version of the game players ended up going with. With the console war back in full swing, at least on social media, the data point zipped across X. It also fed into the brief data point early on that Amazon temporarily sold out of PS5 copies of the game. Microsoft was apparently not happy about this.
Through IGN Finds’ and commerce affiliate linking program, the data is showing that PlayStation is outperforming Xbox by a rate of 8-to-1. Link in bio for more on GTA’s effect on console sales. #IGNSummerOfGaminghttps://t.co/Hc8yYr0FQJ#IGNSummerOfGaming pic.twitter.com/TaKQS2RgxH
— IGN (@IGN) June 27, 2026
“This doesn’t represent pre-order data,” a spokesperson for Xbox later told Windows Central. “We’ve had record orders. People should wait for real data and not clicks on affiliate links.” With GTA VI shaping up to be one of the biggest game releases ever, it’s very believable that early purchases for the game have set a new record for pre-orders on Xbox. That fact also doesn’t preclude it from having still sold many, many more pre-order copies on PS5.
Others have also noted the irony of someone from Microsoft saying to “wait for real data” when the company stopped reporting any kind of sales metrics long ago. We stopped getting console sales data for Xbox back during the Xbox One era, and in the Game Pass era we don’t really get sales data for Xbox first-party games either. Occasionally, studios will reveal the total number of players a game had during a launch period, but even that doesn’t always get made public.
Based on existing industry analyses and estimates, the PS5 could be on track to outsell the Xbox Series X/S at least 2-to-1 this console generation. To the extent that the majority of people who have purchased a PS5 or Xbox Series X/S are likely to buy GTA VI at some point over the next couple of years, you’d expect the platform sales breakdown to follow a similar ratio. In the event that PS5 copies of GTA VI overwhelmingly outperformed that 2-to-1 figure, it might suggest other factors are at play. But without better data, it’s impossible to know.
