On Monday, GameStop exclusively revealed to Level Up that during the first week that Grand Theft Auto IV was available in its U.S. stores, 64 percent of all copies sold were for Xbox 360 and 36 percent for Playstation 3. We sought reaction from both Microsoft and Sony to GameStop's results and our impromptu analysis, a portion of which we shared with you on Monday. Today, we're publishing our conversations with the two console manufacturers in their entirety. We spoke by phone with Peter Dille, senior vice president for marketing at Playstation. Here's what he had to say:

GameStop has exclusively provided me with the percentage split on their first week sales figures for GTA IV. According to them, 64 percent of the copies they sold were for Xbox 360, and 36 percent were for PS3. So given that Grand Theft Auto has primarily been associated with PlayStation platform since GTA III in 2001, are you surprised that the PS3 wasn't able to corral a higher share?

I'll take a couple steps back. First of all, we're not in a position to share retailer specific information. I'm not sure if you got that from Microsoft or Rockstar or GameStop themselves.

No, I got it from GameStop.

Okay. It's our experience that GameStop probably does a little bit better with the early adopter crowd. There's a larger installed base right now on Xbox 360 than on PS3. So it's not surprising that there's going to be more selling on Xbox 360 than PS3. Having said that, we're really excited about the ratio. If I had an installed base advantage of 3-1, I wouldn't be crowing too much about a 60-40 sales advantage. We think it's not as high as what GameStop's telling you, if you look at [the full picture on] the national level. They're outselling us, but not by that same margin, and it's because of their installed base lead. With an installed base lead that's close to 3-1, if you're bragging about a 60-40 software split, it's clear evidence that the Playstation 3 consumer is overindexing on GTA IV, and the Playstation brand loyalty that we've been talking about is bearing itself out in the marketplace as we speak.

So when you were looking at the release of the game, you didn't think that the history of GTA on Playstation was necessarily going to bring you guys to 50 percent parity or more [in terms of GTA IV market share]?

To read the rest of our conversation with Dille in its entirety, click on the link below. 

 

On Monday, GameStop exclusively revealed to Level Up that during the first week that Grand Theft Auto IV was available in its U.S. stores, 64 percent of all copies sold were for Xbox 360 and 36 percent for Playstation 3. We sought reaction from both Microsoft and Sony to GameStop's results and our impromptu analysis, a portion of which we shared with you on Monday. Today, we're publishing our conversations with the two console manufacturers in their entirety. First up is Aaron Greenberg, director of product management at Microsoft. Here's what he told us via email:

GameStop has exclusively provided me with the percentage split on their first week sales figures for Grand Theft Auto IV. According to them, 64 percent of the copies of GTA IV sold were for Xbox 360, while 36 percent were for PS3. Given that Grand Theft Auto has been primarily associated with Playstation platforms since Grand Theft Auto III in 2001, are you surprised that the Xbox 360 was able to corral this high a share?

I think many people have been surprised to see how well GTA IV is selling on Xbox 360 given the history of the franchise. These sales results add GTA IV to a long list of franchises that have switched over from Playstation to find a new home on Xbox 360 similar to what happened last year with titles like Madden and Guitar Hero. As you have covered on Level Up in the past, the majority of third party franchises are being developed first on our platform so they end up playing best on Xbox 360 and when you combine that with Xbox Live, we expect this trend to continue as more multiplatform releases hit the market. With that said, it is fantastic to hear that we beat PS3 two to one on Grand Theft Auto sales from a major retailer like GameStop.

Do you expect this gap to widen or narrow over the rest of the year, and why?

It's tough to say, I think GTA IV will have a much longer tail than some of the other blockbuster titles that have released on our platform. I expect that even this holiday as a lot of new console buyers enter the market we will see GTA IV remain a top title they purchase for the console. Then you also have to consider the excitement and buzz that will be generated when Rockstar starts to promote more details around the exclusive episodes coming to Xbox 360. However, it is clear that there is going to be a completely new Grand Theft Auto IV experience coming to Xbox 360 this fall and I think it is fair to expect that it is going to be a driving factor for another big round of sales of the game.

I did a little math of my own with the help of NPD, which says that through the end of March 2008, 9.9 million Xbox 360s and 4.1 million PS3s have been sold in the U.S. That's a total of 14 million units, of which 70.7 percent are Xbox 360 and 29.3 percent are PS3. When I compare this to GameStop's split of GTA IV sales--64 percent on Xbox 360 and 36 percent on PS3--it's clear that GTA IV underperformed on Xbox 360 relative to Microsoft's pre-April installed base, while it exceeded expectations on PS3 relative to Sony's pre-April installed base. What's your reaction to this, and to what do you attribute this result?

To read the rest of what Greenberg had to say, click on the link below. 

1. MEM...ory lane: the first two minutes of gameplay from the last three GTAs
2. WHO...'s the man? Just whip out your earnings and compare notes
3. THE...re is nothing to fear but fear itself when you're making a game
4. RND...S--t just got real in the world's realest borough, for real, son