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Fark.comThe Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV has heavily outsold the PS3 version at North America's largest specialist videogame retailer.
According to sales data obtained by Level Up, 64 percent of the copies of Grand Theft Auto IV sold at GameStop during the game's first week of availability were for Xbox 360, while the remaining 36 percent were for PS3.
According to pre-April NPD sales data, Microsoft's Xbox 360 had an installed US base of 9.9 million units, compared to a PS3 installed base of 4.1 million units. Of the combined total of 14 million hardware units, Xbox 360 commanded a 70.7 percent market share and PS3 a 29.3 percent share. Arguably therefore, the Xbox 360 version of the title has underperformed at GameStop, while the PS3 version has exceeded expectations.
Here's what Microsoft and Sony had to say about the GameStop GTA IV sales figures.
"... It is fantastic to hear that we beat PS3 two to one on Grand Theft Auto sales from a major retailer like GameStop," said Xbox group product manager Aaron Greenberg. "These sales results add GTA IV to a long list of franchises that have switched over from PlayStation to find a new home on Xbox 360 similar to what happened last year with titles like Madden and Guitar Hero."
SCEA's senior vice president of marketing Peter Dille countered, "There's a larger installed base right now on Xbox 360 than on PS3. So it's not surprising that there's going to be more selling on Xbox 360 than PS3... With an installed base lead that's close to 3-1, if you're bragging about a 60-40 software split, it's clear evidence that the PlayStation 3 consumer is overindexing on GTA IV, and the PlayStation brand loyalty that we've been talking about is bearing itself out in the marketplace as we speak."
The NPD Group is expected to release April videogame hardware and software sales data after market close on Thursday, which should give a much clearer indication of how GTA IV has performed on both platforms relative to their installed bases.
May 13, 2008
