Grand Theft Auto V Sells 45 Million Copies Worldwide, Becomes Best-Selling Game of all Time

Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto V is still riding a sales wave almost a year and a half after its initial release 17 months ago. According to its distributor, Take-Two Interactive, the game performed well into the holidays with 45 million total units sold worldwide.

Take-Two subsidiary Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto V action-adventure video game first on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game consoles in September 2013. Back then, it already became the fastest-selling electronic entertainment release, racking up $1 billion in sales during the first three sales days.

It was then re-released in November for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, following which it sold 10 million more copies during the last holidays. Total sales of the game have now exceeded 45 million copies, Take-Two said in a statement. With that, Grand Theft Auto V becomes the best-selling game of all time having surpassed Nintendo's original Super Mario Bros. by 5 million.

The decision to release the game twice is helping pull Take-Two well past Wall Street expectations for its fiscal third-quarter earnings according to the company. For the third quarter, it reported net income of $40.1 million, or $1.87 per share on an adjusted basis as against the expected $1.52. Revenue was $954 million in the period, as compared with the $798 million forecast. Consequently, "looking ahead, we expect that our fourth quarter will provide a strong finish to fiscal 2015, which is lining up to be one of Take-Two's best years ever," CEO Strauss Zelnick said in a statement.

A PC version of the game is slated for release this March 24, potentially further raising the company's future sales and revenue performance metrics.