Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Red Dead Redemption Ships 5 Million Copies

By
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Red Dead Redemption is officially a hit. A really, really big hit. Gameindustry.biz is reporting the game has shipped over 5 million games worldwide since its release on May 18. The numbers indicate the units sold to the retailers, not necessarily to the consumer, but that is still very good news for Rockstar’s owner, publisher Take-Two.

Back in January, RDR was shaping up to be a disaster of oil-spill-in-the-Gulf proportions. The game was behind schedule, and it was costing Take-Two far more than planned. In fact, the budget was so out of control, that the publisher was expecting to take a loss on the game. One source at Rockstar told Joystiq that, “It will take 4 million sales at full price to recoup the development costs of RDR. The good news is they are not expecting to make money with Red Dead Redemption.”

Recommended Videos

Early estimates claimed that the game would need to make around $160 million to make back the development costs, but that does not count promotion of the game. A later source claimed that the number had risen, due to delays and promotional costs, and that the game would need to sell around 5 million units, something that was considered- at best- difficult. Red Dead Redemption did it in 3 weeks flat.

Related

That is good news for everyone. For fans, it means that studios might be encouraged to try new and ambitious projects to further the industry. Western games had not traditionally had much success, so developers had mostly stayed away from the genre (with a few exceptions). With the middling sales and meager reviews of the prequel Red Dead Revolver, it was a gamble to even continue the series. With the success, perhaps more developers will re-examine concepts they had abandoned.

It is also good news for the game itself, and you can expect the Red Dead series to continue on and likely receive a Grand Theft Auto-like treatment, with new games featuring the same concepts, but with a fresh new look. Grand Theft Auto IV has sold over 17million copies worldwide, so it is possible that RDR’s sales could just be getting warmed up, as positive word of mouth continues to drive sales.

The big winner however is Take-Two. The success of RDR has pushed Take-Two ‘s second quarter into profit. It was also helped by Bioshock 2, GTA: Episodes from Liberty City, and MLB 2K10.

Take-Two also has a handful of games set to debut this year, including LA Noire, Mafia II and Sid Meier’s Civilization V.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Ryan Fleming
Ryan Fleming
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Ryan Fleming is the Gaming and Cinema Editor for Digital Trends. He joined the DT staff in 2009 after spending time covering…
GTA+ feels like last nail in the coffin for Red Dead Online
Two outlaws on horseback chase a cowboy across the desert in Red Dead Online.

It feels like every single headline I've seen recently in a story about Rockstar has included Grand Theft Auto Online somehow. With the massively popular multiplayer component of Grand Theft Auto V releasing as a stand-alone game recently, it's no surprise that Rockstar is going all-in on it. GTA Online has been around since 2013, when GTA V launched. And it didn't just retain a player base, but grew it larger and larger.

GTA+ is the be-all and end-all of that, the four-carat diamond ring planted on the online game's finger that says "you're my forever." It offers players (specifically those on Xbox Series X/S or PS5) a ton of free rewards, from $500,000 in GTA bucks in their in-game bank accounts to entire properties needed to take part in certain pieces of content.

Read more
Grand Theft Auto V’s enhanced upgrade may not be free
Trevor from Grand Theft Auto V.

Grand Theft Auto V: Enhanced Edition, may not a free upgrade for players, according to Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick.

Answering a question during an investor relations call, Zelnick said that players would have to pay for the newest version of GTAV, saying that "there will be plenty of reasons to purchase it." It's not clear if he means that new players will have enough reasons to buy the game or if existing players will need to shell out more cash to play it on current-gen consoles.

Read more
Grand Theft Auto 6’s reveal is comically anticlimactic
Trevor, Michael, and Franklin are all holding guns in GTA 5 promotional art.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is one of the most heavily rumored games ever, and before February 4, 2022, it was never officially acknowledged by Rockstar Games. Our only indication of its existence was through an April 2020 Kotaku article and a series of rumors dating back several years.
That's why it's so comical that its announcement came in the way of a footnote in a Rockstar Newswire post about the GTA series. 
After years of expecting some sort of elaborate alternate reality game or event to reveal GTA 6, it was an extremely anticlimatic moment. While fans seemed to expect more from Rockstar's reveal of the next Grand Theft Auto, the actual confirmation demonstrates how Rockstar's parent company, Take-Two Interactive, was always more concerned with the financial implications of its announcement, rather than the fan reception. 
Can I see it? No!
Grand Theft Auto fans have convinced themselves that a new entry in the series has been on the way for some time. As far back as February 2015, less than a year-and-a-half after GTA V's launch, speculation about a new entry in the series has existed online. From theory posts to bad 4Chan leaks trying to pass as real, we've seen plenty of speculation about GTA 6 and how Rockstar would go about revealing it.
Grand Theft Auto V was originally released for PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2013, and is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X this year. Rockstar Games
The rumor to gain the most traction was "Project Americas." This leak claimed that GTA 6 is set in both Vice City and a Rio de Janeiro-inspired location in the 1970s or 1980s. Lots of other potential leaks continued to build on top of what this rumor established, so Project Americas has been the lifeblood of the hype cycle behind GTA 6.
We still technically don't know whether or not this leak is true, but there's no doubt that it added a substantial amount of fuel to the GTA 6 anticipation fire. But in reality, the ongoing success of GTA Online and the development of Red Dead Redemption 2 meant that GTA 6 was years away from coming to fruition. Following the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, GTA 6 once again started to feel like an inevitably. This all came to a head in an April 2020 Kotaku report that mentioned the game's existence.
While the focus of the article was on Rockstar's improved workplace culture, the thing most people took from it was the following line: "One plan that management has laid out for the next game, a new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series, is to start out with a moderately sized release (which, by Rockstar’s standards, would still be a large game) that is then expanded with regular updates over time, which may help mitigate stress and crunch."
Prior to February 2022, this was the closest thing to official confirmation we had for GTA 6. It then gave momentum to a bevy of new rumors, many of which were now centered around a potential reveal. Fans thought everything from the art for a new car in GTA Online to a new image on Rockstar's website was part of a massive teaser conspiracy ahead of GTA 6's reveal.
In the end, none of that came to be. Rockstar confirmed the new Grand Theft Auto in a tweet and a post about the series at large in a way that makes fan expectations seem laughable. But why did it end up this way? 
Why Rockstar finally revealed GTA 6
The timing of this confirmation is key to why Rockstar shared this news. Shortly after Rockstar Games' posts revealing GTA 6 went live, Take-Two confirmed that its next earnings calling would be on Monday, February 7. Now, in the middle of a merger and acquisition rush in the video game industry, Take-Two can go to its investors and highlight that a new Grand Theft Auto game is on the horizon. Its confirmation makes the future outlook for Take-Two appear brighter, even if the reveal wasn't very elaborate or spectacular. As Take-Two and Rockstar's biggest franchise, any new information on GTA is good news for current and potential Take-Two Interactive investors. 

This isn't even the first time Rockstar and Take-Two did this with the GTA series. The next-gen versions of GTA V got a November 11, 2021 release date prior to an earnings call. While it eventually got delayed, it certainly looked good for Take-Two to have a targeted release date to show investors. While GTA 6 might not launch for several years, confirming its existence is certainly appealing to investors who want a piece of the inevitable success the next Grand Theft Auto game will have.
It also helps from a hiring perspective. While the post doesn't directly specify that Rockstar is hiring, the knowledge that it is indeed working on GTA 6 will drive new people to apply. As Venture Beat points out, we've seen Respawn Entertainment, Blizzard, and Crytek also pull the same move this year alone, driving hiring with news of new games. Rockstar probably wants the best and brightest of the game's industry working on its games, and GTA 6 is certainly a game some developers might be willing to leave their current employer to work on. 
In the end, GTA 6's announcement was more about enticing potential hires and investors, rather than hyping fans up with an awesome trailer or some complicated ARG that reveals Rockstar teased it for years. Is it awesome that the game is finally confirmed? Of course! Its reveal is just comically underwhelming after almost a decade of fans eagerly awaiting it. Hopefully, GTA 6's first trailer can make up for some of the lost hype around this reveal.
Grand Theft Auto 6 does not currently have a release date.

Read more