GTA IV sells 609,000 copies on first day

ELSPA today reported that

day one sales of Rockstar Games’ hugely anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV for Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 have comfortably eclipsed the previous record set by GTA: San Andreas in 2004. Tuesday 29th April sell through for Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 reached 609,000 units - comfortably beating the previous record: GTA: San Andreas for PS2, which sold 501,000 units on Friday 29th October, 2004.

“The scale of GTA’s day one sales are phenomenal and reflect a vibrant market which continues to grow. Gamers are from all age groups and demographics with estimates putting the total number of people in the UK who enjoy games at over 20 million,” said ELSPA managing director, Mike Rawlinson.

I’ve been playing it the last few days and I have to say I’m not surprised. The graphics are not as good as Burnout Paradise in my opinion and the gameplay has not changed much from San Andreas in a lot of areas aither (no bad thing) but everything just seems to work.

I’ve already got bored with the little extras that everyone is talking about, like going to the strip club or bowling. It’s funny but the noveltywears off pretty quick. Thankfully, that you are left with is an amazing GTA game. Running around the town with a stolen car is still as fun as the first 2D game. The cutscenes are hilarious and really immerse you in the story and the map is huge too (although apparently the map is smaller than San Andreas).

What does everyone else think of the game so far?