'Grand Theft Auto IV' nets Guinness record

If worldwide headlines about the record-setting first-day and first-week sales of Grand Theft Auto IV weren't enough, the game's publisher and its developer, Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games, now have a Guinness world record to boot.

On Tuesday morning, Guinness issued a press release certifying the game's insanely profitable launch as the entertainment industry's best ever for one day ($310 million) and one week ($500 million).

Interestingly, in stories I've written about this previously, I wrote that GTA IV had broken the single-day record of $170 million previously held by Bungie Studio's Xbox 360 game, Halo 3. In many stories, by both me and others, it has been exhaustively pointed out that the best video game launches had far outdone those by the best films.

According to the Guinness release, however, the previous record was actually not a video game at all. Rather, it was J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, the final book in that cash-cow series, which when it launched last July, earned $220 million in its first 24 hours.

If this is true, then Microsoft--which owned Bungie at the time--was wrong when it touted the first-day sales of Halo 3 as the then-best entertainment-industry launch.

Funny that despite the incredible sales of the last Harry Potter, no one, myself included, had thought to include books on the list of best launches.

Well, no matter. Now, even that record has fallen to the might of the GTA IV machine.

Humorously, as part of its release, Guinness is hawking its new Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, obviously trying to tie the GTA IV record to the new book. It's a natural link to make, of course, although the book was published before the new record.

I have the book, and it's kind of fun. There's a lot of interesting video game trivia, obscure records, and much more.

But, alas, no mention of the GTA IV record.

On June 10, Geek Gestalt hits the highways for Road Trip 2008. I'll start in Orlando, Fla., and visit many of the South's most interesting destinations. Stay tuned, and be sure to keep up, both now and during the trip, with what I'm doing on Twitter.

[shevaberg]

I remeber this thead someplace else.... take the 550 million divide by the 50-80 dollars per copy of GTA 4 and still
IRONMAN the movies beats the sales per unit sold.

[thelastrace]

The thing that makes Halo's sales record more eye appealing is it was for one system. GTA 4 was released for two system so obviously had a much larger market.

[bblande]

Shevaberg: THANK YOU! Finally someone gets it. You can't compare game launches to books and movies unless you're talking units sold. The price differences make it apples to oranges.

[clarrkkent]

I'm on board with both Shevaberg and thelastrace. People seem to gloss over the details that make comparisons to Halo and other types media ridiculous. I don't even own a PS3 or 360, nor play Halo or GTA, but even I can see the absurdity and idiocy in the comparisons and it bothers me so much that here I am commenting about it.

Halo still wins, hands down. Talk to me when GTA is released on ONE system and THEN beats Halo in sales.

[carcharodon-carcharias]

"Harry Potter...the final book in that cash-cow series..."

Oh, right ,and the GTA franchise is brand new and fresh and haven't spawned glorified expansion packs in the form of new titles by the dozen. Not that I like Harry Potter, but still, more objectivity wouldn't hurt.

[thedreaming]

Big numbers impress money hungry multi-billion dollar corporations. Their train won't last forever.

[The_Decider]

But does it add anything new to the series?

Is it really a good game once you get past the hype?

These questions are glossed over so people can start worshiping money some more.

This is why the state of all entertainment is in the crapper.

[Heepspo]

It's video game sales that matter to me...WHO CARES IF IT'S MULTI-PLATFORM OR NOT!

Point is, GTAIV killed Halo 3.

What are you going to say now?
"Halo 3" had a green box and GTAIV didn't so that shouldn't count"

DERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! lol

[Monaco_6]

Actually Heepsop... the number of unit sold really DOES matter. You can't really compare the sales of Rock Band and GTAIV or Halo 3, because Rock Band costs almost three times as much as Halo or GTAIV, so in order for Rock Band and Halo 3 for example to earn the same amount of sales, Halo 3 would have to sell almost three times as many copies as Rock Band... Just to make the same amount of money. So it really only matters how many units of a product are sold. Hope that helped.