Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick stated during the company's Q1 FY2027 earnings call that Grand Theft Auto VI pre-orders had an "exceptional" start, unparalleled in the history of both Take-Two and the entire gaming industry.
However, the publisher declined to disclose the specific number of pre-orders. According to Zelnick, the company does not believe it is appropriate to draw premature conclusions about the project's success before its full release.
We've had an exceptional response to GTA 6 pre-orders. I'm not going to tell you how many copies have been sold yet, but I can tell you that sales are unprecedented, astonishing, and astronomical. We don't even know yet how to translate these figures into conventional numbers. We are not celebrating victory prematurely, but we can say that neither Take-Two nor the entire gaming industry has ever seen anything like this before.
During the conference, the decision by Rockstar and Take-Two to forgo a physical disc in the retail edition of GTA VI was also discussed. Commenting on this move, Zelnick explained that today, more than 90% of the company's business is based on digital distribution.
According to him, for major modern games, physical media often no longer makes sense, as most users still require an internet connection for registration and to launch the game. However, the head of Take-Two emphasized that the company does not intend to completely abandon physical editions — they will continue to be released where justified. As an example, he compared such releases to vinyl records, which still exist in the music market despite the dominance of digital services.