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'Grand Theft Auto IV' launches amid great expectation

Pachter believes the game will have legs into next year, as well, as Microsoft and Sony continue to more deeply penetrate the market with their latest systems. "The attach rate is likely to slow a bit, so we should expect another 5 to 6 million units sold (unless the game is discounted)," Pachter said. "So I think lifetime sales will be 16 to 19 million."

While that may in fact constitute 'huge', it would not best GTAIV's direct predecessor, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, according to Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson. "I don't see any other game this year that has the sales potential of GTAIV. However, the real question is what console game can top San Andreas?" Wilson said to GameSpot. "San Andreas sold 21.5 million copies [globally]."

Regardless of whether GTAIV pulls a sales coup on its antecedent, Wilson believes gamers will flock in droves to GTAIV. Giving a quick and dirty rundown, Wilson told GameSpot, "Our initial assumptions for the game are 4.5 million worldwide in April. 8.5 million by the end of October. 10 million by the end of the year." In a note to investors this week, Wilson referenced the gushing nature of early reviews, and said he may have lowballed the actual year-end total by as much as 2 million units.

Certainly one of the biggest factors in Rockstar's corner is the substantially larger pool of customers GTAIV will enjoy over Halo 3. "In total, we estimate the US 360 installed base to be 3.5 million higher for GTAIV than it was for Halo's launch, or just over 50 per cent," said Wilson. The PS3 adds another 4 to 4.5 million consoles to the GTA base." As such, though Wilson agrees with Pachter that the game will see a significantly lower attach rate than Halo 3 -- 26 per cent in the US, 20 per cent globally in its first week -- it will enjoy a superior opening-week sales tally of $550m.

All said, Pachter believes that if GTAIV hits his sales estimate, Take-Two and Rockstar will see retail sales of roughly $720m in 2008, assuming all games go for full price. That's a sizable slice of the pie, given Pachter's 2008 global gaming industry revenue estimates. "I expect US and European software sales to total $22.8bn this year, so GTA represents 3.2 per cent of all games sold."

As for when the next time a title will leave such a substantive imprint on the gaming industry, the prolific analyst was quite clear: "GTAV".