Take-Two's CEO says on CNBC that the 99.99 euro edition is preordered more than the 79.99 euro one, yet he will not publish a single number.
Photo: Rockstar Games
Sources me.ign.com · numerama.com · pcgamer.com
When a publisher gives no number, it gives a trend. In an interview aired on August 10 by CNBC, relayed by IGN and Numerama, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two, says players are preordering the Ultimate Edition at 99.99 euros more than the standard edition at 79.99 euros.
He qualifies it straight away: it may reflect that the most passionate customers are the ones preordering right now. The queue of first buyers is not a sample of the whole audience. Numerama lists what the Ultimate includes: access to five shops, exclusive vehicles, cosmetic outfits and weapons, but no early access to the game.
PC Gamer reports the question Bloomberg's Jason Schreier put to the same executive: why not publish the raw preorder count? Zelnick's answer is that the volume is so unprecedented that Take-Two "can't tell whether they mean anything". He suggests the demand may be a pull forward of sales that would otherwise have come later.
The publisher says it does not know the demand curve because this has never happened, and that raw numbers could be misleading. The logic holds: you do not project sales from preorders opened before a single minute of official gameplay. On PC, PC Gamer notes that all of this stays academic, since no version is announced.
The 27-minute Extended Look came out on August 27 on Netflix, then on YouTube. The game launches on November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with preloading on November 12 and a PEGI 18 rating.
Prices have not moved: 79.99 euros for standard, 99.99 euros for Ultimate, detailed on our price comparator. Still no PC version announced.
The message cuts two ways. For the publisher, demand is defying its own models, and it admits as much. For players, the 99.99 euro edition stops being a marginal option: it is what the most impatient choose, and probably a signal for pricing to come. What the curve looks like after launch, when less hurried buyers arrive, remains to be seen.
Sources me.ign.com · numerama.com · pcgamer.com
By Daniel Jasner · VI Countdown newsroom, OKALAM Studio