[Gerard]

Microsoft have released some crazy statistics regaring GTA IV's effect on Xbox 360 sales and Xbox Live:

Last week, Xbox 360 console sales went up by 54% compared to the week before.
According to retailers more than 60% of all GTA games sold in the first week were the Xbox 360 version
Roughly 40% of consoles are now bought with a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV

Regarding Xbox LIVE:

In the first week, more than 2.3 million gamers played Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox LIVE
GTA IV is now the number one played game on Xbox LIVE
Over the weekend, the Xbox LIVE service reached 1 million users playing at the same time
Gamers have unlocked more than 12 million achievements worth over 100 million gamerscore points in GTA IV
On average, every gamer spent 4 hours playing GTA IV on Xbox LIVE last week

What do you think the reason is for GTA IV's immense success? Let us know in the forums.

[josef8]

No wonder u guys in Thegtaplace are with the xbox like Ign...

[MrLlamaLlama]

^ We're not biased towards either console, we discourage fanboyism here, and try to be impartial, and provide equal support for both platforms.

[Gerard]

I resent that. I got an email from Microsoft showing all their statistics for the GTA IV launch week. Thats awesome, and it's all because of GTA, so I posted it. You got a problem with that?

I also got an email from Sony Computer Entertainment about Gran Turismo selling 50 million units ever, but GTA sold over 70 million units before GTA IV came out, which means they're almost at 80 million now.

I did hunt for the PS3 statistics for GTA, but apart from total sales figures (which have already been discussed) there was nothing available.