Microsoft has denied recent reports indicating that the PlayStation version of Grand Theft Auto 6 is outselling its Xbox counterpart by orders of magnitude. The company says those claims are not rooted in “real data,” insisting that GTA 6 is enjoying record-breaking pre-order performance among Xbox users.
The sixth mainline GTA game went up for pre-order on June 25, starting at $79.99. Two days later, IGN reported that pre-orders for the PlayStation version have been outpacing Xbox pre-orders by a factor of eight to one, citing internal data from its deal-hunting subsidiary IGN Finds. The claim spread quickly online, fueling fan speculation about whether GTA 6 could further widen the gap between the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X/S.
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Xbox Dismisses GTA 6 Pre-Order Report
Affiliate Are Not Pre-Order Data, Company Says
Microsoft has formally denied claims that the PS5 version of GTA 6 is outperforming its Xbox Series X/S counterpart by an eight-to-one margin. In a statement to Windows Central, an Xbox spokesperson rejected the framing of the original report, saying it “doesn’t represent pre-order data.” The spokesperson added that Microsoft is seeing “record orders” across the Xbox ecosystem and said “people should wait for real data and not clicks on affiliate links,” referring to the fact that IGN Finds’ GTA 6 sales data is based on affiliate-link activity rather than direct retail or platform-level pre-order figures.
Although Microsoft has not shared concrete sales numbers, its claim of “record orders” still complicates the eight-to-one narrative. Recent estimates put lifetime Xbox Series X/S sales at roughly 35 million units as of mid-2026, while Sony’s latest official figures put PS5 sales at 93.7 million as of the end of Q1 2026. Those figures would make the PS5 install base about 2.7 times larger than the Series X/S audience, not eight times larger. A major PlayStation advantage for GTA 6 pre-orders would therefore be unsurprising, but an eight-to-one gap would suggest a much wider disparity than the current console market alone can explain, especially if Xbox is seeing “record” pre-sale activity.
Microsoft’s rebuttal of the PlayStation-to-Xbox GTA 6 pre-order comparison did not clarify when concrete commercial data might become available. Based on historical precedent, publisher Take-Two Interactive is more likely to reveal the first official figures before either console maker discloses its own platform-specific data, assuming such details materialize at all. In any case, Take-Two should have at least some relevant figures by late August 2026, when its next consolidated financial report covering the second quarter of calendar year 2026 (Q1 FY2027) is due to be published.
In the meantime, unofficial figures from industry watchers indicate that the game’s pre-orders are off to a massive start. Some Wall Street analysts estimate that GTA 6 generated as much as $1 billion in pre-order revenue within its first hour of availability. If accurate, that would imply roughly 10 million to 12.5 million pre-orders in the first 60 minutes, depending on the split between Standard and Ultimate Edition buyers. For added context, that would mean GTA 6 generated as much revenue in its first hour of pre-orders as GTA 5 did during its first three days in 2013.
- Released
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November 19, 2026
- ESRB
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Rating Pending – Likely Mature 17+
