Grand Theft Auto 5 being a successful video game isn't news to anyone anymore.
However in spite of having been tempered by report after report of sales milestones, toplist positions and huge earnings, the game continues to surprise in the magnitude of its success.
A recent report from Business Insider sheds light on many of GTA 5's achievements.
We've done our fair share of reporting how many times GTA 5 topped various lists over the past few years in spite of its age, but we didn't cover every instance. If we had, you'd have read about it every month save for one since release.
GTA 5 held a position on the NPD Group's monthly top 20 list 57 times out of 58 since its release in the September of 2013.
No other game has ever gotten even close to pulling off something like this. Only a single month since launch did the game slip out of the upper 20, and even then just barely. In October 2014, it was at #21.
Considering the release of the Enhanced Edition was in November 2014, it makes sense that folks weren't too hot on buying the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions available at the time but even so it was #21.
The last time Take-Two revealed earnings to investors GTA 5 had shipped over 95 million copies, and it has most certainly crossed 100 million since then.
The only two other games that managed that were Minecraft, available in multiple console bundles across an even wider range of systems than GTA 5, and Tetris, which... is Tetris.
The longevity and staying power of GTA 5 made it such an immense success, and thanks to its popular Online mode the snowball effect boosted sales and interest vastly. The entire GTA franchise has sold around 285 million units according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, and GTA 5 alone makes up 100 million.
Beyond seven main titles, the GTA franchise numbers several spin-off games as well and all are successful in their own right.
The next Take-Two investor call isn't far away, and we will be covering GTA 5's triumphant passing of the 100 million mark then.
