It should come as no real surprise that GTA 6 is expected to make an absolute bucketload of cash, but if early pre-order estimates are anything to go by, it might even exceed our wildest expectations.

Pre-orders for Rockstar’s next game opened on June 25 last week, and the response appears to have been mega. Nowhere has sold out due to the decision to only include a code in the box rather than the physical disc, but early signs are looking extremely promising.

According to one industry analyst, GTA 6 might have already crossed the $1bn mark from its pre-orders – and that was apparently in the first hour of it going on sale.

Anthony Palomba, a professor at the Darden School of Business, claims: “Take-Two shares rose almost 3% in early trading when preorders opened, and some analysts modeled as much as $1 billion in revenue in the first hour alone.”

If these numbers are accurate, this would place GTA 6 in prime stead for overtaking the previous record set by GTA 5. At the time of release in 2013, GTA 5 became the fastest selling entertainment product of all time with it earning $815.7 million in its first day of going on sale.

If we count pre-order sales as going through on November 19 when GTA 6 officially launches, then it will no doubt beat that record without breaking a sweat. Of course, we can factor in inflation and the fact that plenty of gamers will be pushed to purchase the more expensive Ultimate edition to get all of the exclusive content, but it’s an impressive feat nonetheless.

Despite its immense popularity, GTA 6 pre-orders haven’t been without their controversy. The lack of a physical version has caused some upset among gamers who are dead set on owning their copy of the game outright.

There are also still question marks over whether Rockstar will include a paper map of the world like it has for every game since GTA 3.

Still, we do know that even though GTA 6 isn’t out until November 19, boxed copies will start shipping from November 12. This is to give players time to pre-load the game ahead of launch day, with the long lead time potentially indicating the file size could be pretty chunky.

GTA 5 currently sits as the third best-selling game of all time having sold over 230 copies at the time of writing. It sits behind only Minecraft and Tetris (if we’re combining all the different variations it’s had over the decades).

It might be a while before GTA 6 topples any of those numbers – especially since there’s no word on when an Online mode is coming to the game – but early signs are certainly looking very promising for both Rockstar’s and Take-Two’s financials.