Xbox is pushing back on reports that GTA 6 sells mostly on PlayStation. In his Notepad newsletter at The Verge, Tom Warren wrote that pre-orders are heavily skewed toward PS5, as part of a report on Xbox’s restructuring. He gave no percentages.
What Xbox said
Matthew Ball, Xbox’s chief strategy officer, replied on X on September 24. He said Xbox is very happy with GTA 6 pre-orders, that the game is breaking records for Xbox and that more records should fall this fall. According to Xbox’s internal analysis, its share of pre-orders matches its share of the console market.
What the numbers show
Nobody has published hard data. The only outside estimate is Sensor Tower’s from August: 4.38 million pre-orders by August 18, 77% on PS5 and 23% on Xbox Series X|S (GTA 6 hype in numbers).
Ball’s wording doesn’t contradict that. Xbox has sold far fewer consoles this generation than PlayStation, so a small share of pre-orders can still match its place in the market. Circana analyst Mat Piscatella replied on Bluesky that, given Xbox’s market share, he wouldn’t brag about the split.
The PlayStation marketing
PlayStation runs the “plays best on PS5” campaign for GTA 6, and in June Rockstar used the same tagline in an Ultimate Edition ad on X that named only PS5 (GamesRadar+). Both consoles get the game on November 19.
