The Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV is outselling the PS3 version at retail by a margin of two-to-one!
...or so says Aaron Greenberg, director of product management for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, who told the site this during an interview Thursday. He also said that roughly 1 million GTA IV users went online with the game on Xbox Live, 2 million GTA IV achievements were unlocked in the first 24 hours, and over 15 million Gamerscore points were added to users' accounts in the first day.
But a Sony rep questioned Greenberg’s claims, saying that Microsoft's two-to-one ratio "doesn't line up" with what they has been hearing from its retailers.
Yet over in the UK, the Xbox 360 version outsold the PS3 version in day-one sales 335,000 to 274,000, respectively, according to Chart Track.
So just how much impact is GTA having on sales of Xbox 360 and PS3 then?
Well, Sony released a statement Thursday saying that GTA IV drove a boost in PS3 sales on the game's launch day, although the company has yet to release hard figures.
Microsoft also has yet to release post-GTA IV hardware sales figures, but Greenberg said, "We've heard from our retailers that the consoles saw strong lifts during the week. We typically wait for [research firm] NPD to give us a better read on that. But we expect that GTA IV is definitely driving a lot of people to Xbox 360. ... The fact that we know that we're outselling [the PS3 version] two-to-one on the game is a pretty good sign that a lot of those games are going with a new console out the door."
Greenberg even suggests that many gamers are ignoring PlayStation brand loyalty in the case of GTA IV because of the exclusive downloadable content that will be available for the Xbox 360 this fall. And it doesn’t hurt that Microsoft is leveraging GTA IV's strong online multiplayer component by including a one-month Xbox Live gold subscription with all GTA IV launch copies. They hope the game will drive Xbox Live adoption. Gold subscriptions cost $50 for a full year.
Next-gen.biz: 360 GTA IV Outselling PS3 Version 2-to-1
