No doubt about it: Grand Theft Auto V is one of the biggest games of all time. On its debut in fall 2013, Rockstar North's open-world criminal simulator nabbed seven world records, including the best-selling video game in its first 24 hours and the fastest video game to net $1 billion in revenue. Grand Theft Auto V moved over 15 million units in its first ten days, and went on to become the best-selling title of 2013, despite the fact that it was only available on last-generation consoles.

After delayed multiplayer content and a well-publicized lawsuit filed by starlet Lindsay Lohan, Grand Theft Auto V is still going strong. Last fall, Rockstar released an updated version of Grand Theft Auto V which brought the title to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and added a game-changing first-person mode. That was enough to push the game past Call of Duty: Black Ops on the United Kingdom's sales charts, making it the best-selling game in the UK ever.

Now, Rockstar can put another feather in its cap: according to VGChartz, Grand Theft Auto V has sold over 40 million copies worldwide (the initial news release puts the number around 40.56 million units, although adding up the provided sales figures yields a total closer to 43.5 million). That's a lot of Grand Theft Auto.

Most of those sales came from the initial, last-generation version of the game, with the PlayStation 3 edition leading the way at 19.24 million copies, and the Xbox 360 edition close behind at 17.79 million. The PlayStation 4 is clearly the dominant platform for the current-generation port, with 4.73 million units sold to the Xbox One's 1.81.

If those figures hold up, it'll mean that Grand Theft Auto V is the second highest-selling console game of all time (cumulatively, Minecraft sold around 54 million units, but roughly a third of those sales came from the PC and Mac versions of the game). As a point of comparison, the original Super Mario Bros. only sold 40.24 million copies, and that was not only included with the original Nintendo Entertainment System, but is often considered the greatest game ever made.

The news gets better for Rockstar, too: the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V still hasn't come out yet (hopefully, it'll release later this month), while the imminent addition of long-awaited multiplayer heists will likely move more copies across all platforms.

Grand Theft Auto V shows no sign of slowing down; while the game probably won't catch Wii Sports and its 82.54 million sales, all available evidence indicates that Rockstar will be riding the Grand Theft Auto gravy train for years to come.

Source: VGChartz