Grand Theft Auto V's main characters, Michael, Franklin, and Trevor may not look so good on the digital version for the PlayStation 3.
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Rockstar aims to dominate the living room with Grand Theft Auto V

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 6 min

When Grand Theft Auto V launches tomorrow, it is assured of being a blockbuster, since preorders have been so strong, and it’s one of the most anticipated games of the year. The question is just how large a blast radius it will create.

The pent-up demand for a new version of Rockstar Games’ ultraviolent, open-world, urban culture series is high because Rockstar hasn’t released a new version since Grand Theft Auto IV in 2008. That game sold more than 25 million copies as of late 2012. The series has sold more than 125 million copies to date, generating billions of dollars for Rockstar and its publicly traded parent company, Take-Two Interactive. Its budget for development and marketing has been estimated at $260 million, but Rockstar could make that money back in a couple of days.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.