Microsoft must be really happy

May 30, 2008 07:44 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has been delivering stats regarding the sales of GTA IV copies for the Xbox and other "we're better than Sony" things, but they have not officially been confirmed. Until now, when Chart-Track has released the numbers for the past month in the UK and confirmed that not only GTA IV had sold much more copies on the Xbox 360, but Microsoft's console had also started to sell much better since the beginning of the year.

Since January 2008 until now, the PlayStation 3 has been outselling the Xbox 360 console on a monthly basis. Prior to the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV, Sony's console boasted a 20% lead on Microsoft's console, but the gap narrowed during the past four weeks: now the PS3 only has a 10 percent lead and it is losing grounds more and more. The reason? GTA IV, of course, the game that sells better than no other. And it appears that it also sells better on the Xbox 360, according to Chart-Track: of the 1.3 million copies of the game sold in the UK, 750,000 were for Xbox and 570,000 for the PlayStation. This means that 57 percent of the total sales went to Microsoft and the remaining 43 went to Sony.

Also, since GTA IV has been launched, the 360 recorded a 47 increase in sales, while the PS3 got a boost of a measly eight percent (although it appears that the console already had a significant boost when GT 5 Prologue was released). And all these numbers mean, in the end, that the Xbox console sales are 18 percent ahead of PS3 sales since Rockstar's game has been released - official numbers, confirmed by Chart Track to website Eurogamer.

These stats will definitely be a blow for PS3 fanboys and probably for Sony. It seems that, in the end, downloadable content and achievements matter the most to gamers, and not the origins of the game. Could these numbers prove that those who said that GTA IV could decide the fate of the consoles' war were right?

Until you decide, feel free to check our Grand Theft Auto IV review.