GTA 5 will sell 18 million, could outsell Call of Duty, says analyst

Sterne Agee’s Arvind Bhatia, industry analyst, believes that the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 5 will sell as many as 18 million units in Rockstar Games’ financial year, and that the highly anticipated new installment might even outsell Call of Duty’s new game.

Bhatia estimates that the development cost for GTA 5 has to be around $137.5 million, what with a development team consisting of more than 250 people having ben working on it for 5 years now.

He also suggests that Rockstar and Take Two will spend between $69 million and $109.3 million on the game’s marketing.

Bhatia says that the game could sell anywhere between 15 million units and 25 million units, which would generate a profit of $193.6 million to $390.8 million for Rockstar respectively.

Bhatia also went on to make the bold prediction that this year’s CoD installment will probably be outsold by GTA 5, and it will probably be the only game that gives the upcoming open world title much commercial competition.

GTA 5 releases on September 17 for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

[CVG]