According to insiders, the long-awaited release of Grand Theft Auto VI may face unprecedented sales pressure on its very first day. Despite previous concerns, in recent months there has been much confirmation that Rockstar Games still plans to release the game this fall, with a massive marketing campaign set to begin soon.
As Bloomberg reports, the project needs to sell over 25 million copies in the first 24 hours to be considered a successful launch. Even sales of 10–15 million copies, which would be an outstanding result for most games, could allegedly be perceived as a "failure."
The reason for such high expectations lies in the colossal development budget. According to the report, the cost of creating the game has already exceeded 1 billion dollars. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick previously noted that development costs are rapidly increasing as the company strives to "create the best entertainment on the planet."
It is reported that development teams have been given virtually unlimited budgets to bring the game to a perfect state, despite the "frighteningly high" industry expectations. At the same time, Take-Two Interactive's early internal benchmarks suggested sales of 18–20 million copies on the first day.