The GTA 6 extended look presentation on Netflix caused a pretty substantial surge in sales for PS5 and Xbox Series consoles in the US.
Netflix’s GTA 6 extended look had 31.1 million viewers in four days, which is to say it seemed to go down pretty well, especially since you could watch it for free on YouTube hours later. It was a massive success: the game looked extremely impressive throughout the showcase, and it clearly pulled in some, as PS5 Pro stock disappeared pretty soon afterward.
Circana’s Mat Piscatella reports that following the premiere of the GTA 6 extended look, “In the US, combined PS5/XBS hardware unit sales for the week ending Aug 29 increased 14% versus the prior week.”
He notes that PlayStation grew by 17% and Xbox Series X|S by 9%, and that “The combined increase across both platforms amounted to less than 8k units.” Meanwhile, Nielsen IQ (via The Game Business) reports that in the UK console sales jumped by 33% for PlayStation and 34% for Xbox.
But you can only wonder what the jump would’ve been like if consoles weren’t becoming somewhat prohibitively expensive for many. The PS5 Pro is almost a grand after Sony bumped the price up by 150, with the regular PS5 consoles getting $100 on top, while Xbox consoles jumped by $100-$150 depending on whether you get a 512GB or 1TB console.
Since the GTA 6 premiere, I’ve had multiple people who haven’t jumped in on this generation ask about which console to get for GTA 6, but many are simply unwilling to spend that much, especially since this is the only generation where consoles have gotten more expensive as it goes on.
So yes, it’s a big bump, but you have to wonder how much bigger it could’ve been if not for the ongoing global RAM shortages courtesy of it being funneled into the AI slop industry.