The sales success of Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto 5 has translated into six new world records, according to Guinness World Records. The entity which tracks records and achievements confirmed that GTA 5, which released on September 17th for PS3 and Xbox 360, smashed records previously held by both video game franchises and blockbuster movies alike.
Guinness noted that GTA 5 had sold 11.21 million units in its first 24 hours of availability, generating revenue of $815.7 million. As the story goes, GTA 5 went on to reach $1 billion in sales after just three days. That's good enough for the following six records:
- Best-selling action-adventure videogame in 24 hours
- Best-selling videogame in 24 hours
- Fastest entertainment property to gross $1 billion
- Fastest videogame to gross $1 billion
- Highest grossing videogame in 24 hours
- Highest revenue generated by an entertainment product in 24 hours
"GTA totally deserves to be recognized as an icon of modern British culture, and we're thrilled to be able to feature the game in the record books," said Guinness World Records Editor-in-Chief, Craig Glenday. "Gaming is no longer a niche hobby, as GTA 5 has proved, and how exciting that it's taken on the might of Hollywood and won! I'm also doubly proud as a Dundonian to welcome this home-grown series back into the Guinness World Records book.”
Grand Theft Auto 5 had previously broken the record for "Most viewed trailer for an action-adventure videogame." I didn't know that type of thing was even tracked, but it should've been our first sign that the game was bound to achieve great things. I can only imagine that more records will be broken if and when Rockstar decides to release a PC version, which has yet to be announced.
