Grand Theft Auto IV Tops $500 Million in One Week

The take for GTA IV's first week of sales:

Total worldwide sales (revenue): more than $500 million [Source: Take-Two Interactive]
Total worldwide sales (units): 6 million [Source: Take-Two Interactive]
Total budget estimate: $100 million [Source]

Not to mention a couple of Guinness World Records.

It is completely amazing to me that a video game can make over 1/2 a billion dollars in just one week. Yet another sign that video games are overtaking movies as a form of entertainment. Iron Man opened at the same time and grossed just $201 million worldwide in its first week. As VoltageBlog points out, this dispels the myth that video games are the reason for lowered box office takes.

At $100 million, the budget of GTA was similar to that of high budget Hollywood movies (I believe Iron Man had a budget of $140 million). GTA took 3 years of effort and close to 1,000 people contributed. I don't know how those numbers compare to movies, but I think they are fairly similar.

via Wired