The firm says the typical range for premium game editions is 10–20%, and the GTA6 split is something they have never seen before
Image credit: Rockstar Games News by Lewis Packwood Features Editor Published on Aug. 13, 2026, 2 p.m. Follow Rockstar Games The digital intelligence firm Sensor Tower reports that 89% of preorders for GTA6 are for the $100 ultimate edition rather than the $80 standard edition.
The percentages are similar for both of the game's launch platforms, with 90% of buyers on Xbox plumping for the ultimate edition, compared with 88.5% on PlayStation.
The figures back up Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick's recent statement in an interview with CNBC that preorders are "skewing more to the premium edition." But just how much more they are skewing towards the ultimate edition came as a surprise to Karl Kontus, SVP and GM of Video Game Insights at Sensor Tower.
He points out to GamesIndustry.biz that special editions "always tend to perform well during the preorder period," because games tend to be preordered by their most dedicated fans, who are also more likely to want a premium edition. "That being said, I have never seen a 90% premium share before," he says. "A 50% premium share during preorders is a great number. Typical premium shares for games tend to be at around 10–20%."
He expects the share of sales for the GTA6 ultimate edition to decline over time as more casual players buy the game, "but it's likely it'll stay significantly above the industry standard."
Kontus thinks that at launch, the split between the $80 standard edition and the $100 ultimate edition will largely be determined by how many casual players the GTA6 marketing machine can pull in ahead of the release date.
"The vast majority of the marketing campaign hasn't kicked off yet, and most of the preorders will come in the last week or so pre-launch," he says. "I expect the split for these to be much closer to 50/50. That being said, GTA6 is very hard to forecast, given it lives in a league of its own. There is no benchmark for how this game will perform from here."
As for why the ultimate edition is performing so well, Kontus thinks the pricing has a lot to do with it. "The difference between $80 (already higher than the industry standard $70 we see today) and $100 isn't that big, and the $100 SKU comes with a lot of additional content." The ultimate edition includes a long list of exclusive perks , including access to vehicle customisation shops.
"Sometimes the premium SKUs are just filler content to justify a higher price, but the GTA6 premium SKU comes with a meaningful amount of vehicles, weapons, and even a custom mod shop that you wouldn't get otherwise," says Kontus. "For a lot of people, this is the one 'must buy' game this year, and they will want to make the most of it. I'm actually kind of surprised they didn't do a $150 SKU – feels like money left on the table (but also fewer players being angry as a result)."
In terms of just how many units GTA6 will sell in total at launch, Kontus says it's difficult to predict. "If we used any 'normal' preorder trajectories, the current 4 million preorders would mean 40 million+ preorders by launch. However, as Strauss Zelnick himself pointed out in a recent interview , it's incredibly hard to say what's 'normal' for GTA6. The zeitgeist around the game is so high that it warps everything."
Zelnick recently told GamesIndustry.biz that the level of pre-orders was "unprecedented and astoni…