GTA 5 is the second best selling game of all time, selling over 140 million copies.
This figure is even more impressive considering the games it is sandwiched between in the list of best selling games.
The number one spot is held by Minecraft, which has sold over 200 million copies, and third place is held by Tetris, which has sold over 100 million copies.
Minecraft is a much cheaper game to purchase, selling between £15-20, while Tetris was given away with Gameboys, whereas GTA 5 is a full-price game, selling for around $60/£40.
With the addition of GTA Online, could fans be holding back the release of GTA 6?
Is GTA Online Hurting GTA 6?
GTA 5 was first released back in 2013, since then it has been released on PS3, Xbox 360, PC, PS4 and Xbox One.
A next-gen port on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S is due later this year.
Once this new port is released, GTA 5 will have spanned three console generations.
In contrast, the PS2 saw three main series and two spin-off GTA games, if you count Vice City and San Andreas as being mainline, which the majority of people do despite them not being numbered.
This isn't a truly fair comparison though as the quality of current-gen games, in terms of visuals, size etc, far exceed the capabilities of the PlayStation 2, so it is understandable that the next entry in the series will take a very long time to develop.
But, could GTA 6 have been released sooner?
Record-Breaking
GTA 5 generated $1 billion in sales within the first three days of its release, and within six weeks had outsold GTA 4.
Since reaching $1 billion its sales have jumped tenfold which, along with GTA Online, means that GTA 5 has likely generated well over $10 billion in revenue.
GTA Online also continues to generate a large amount of revenue each year, reaching somewhere between $700 million-$1 billion in revenue during 2020.
The base game, GTA 5, sold more copies in 2020 than any other year apart from its release year of 2013.
So Why Make GTA 6?
We do know that GTA 6 is in active development right now, but the reasons outlined above could have played a large part in why Rockstar was in no rush to begin development.
GTA 5 is still generating a large amount of revenue, keeping the company very profitable with a lot lower outgoings than developing a new game.
Had there not been a global pandemic then sales of GTA 5 would have likely been much lower than they were, but even so, the game remains as popular as ever.
So, to put it nicely, the players are potentially a large part as to why GTA 6 has yet to be released or even announced.
But, with the rumoured release date of 2023, we can expect an announcement hopefully sometime this year.
GTA 5 was first announced two years before it was released, so a late 2021 announcement is plausible.