GTA Vice City (2002): The Sequel That Came 372 Days Later

Vice City is usually remembered for its look: pastel suits, neon, a 1980s soundtrack. The more interesting fact is how fast it arrived. Rockstar North shipped it 372 days after Grand Theft Auto III, on the same PS2 hardware, and it went on to outsell its predecessor by Rockstar's own count. In Take-Two's books it did something neither GTA III nor San Andreas matched: for one fiscal year, a single version of it was a third of the company's net sales. This page argues that Vice City mattered because it proved GTA III was a formula, not a fluke, and shows the numbers that back that up.

At a glance

What is counted, and how

Sales figures are Rockstar and Take-Two statements, quoted with their dates. They mix "shipped" (March 2004) and "sold" (October 2004), as the releases themselves do. We found no later standalone Vice City total in a primary source, so none is given.

Revenue shares come from Take-Two's 10-K annual reports, which rank top titles by percentage of net sales. Take-Two's fiscal year ends Oct 31. Vice City's North American release on Oct 29, 2002 left three days in fiscal 2002 (Oct 29, 30 and 31). Where two 10-Ks give different figures for the same year, we use the later table and note the earlier one. San Andreas shipped to North American stores on Oct 25, 2004, per Rockstar, which leaves seven days (Oct 25 to 31) in fiscal 2004.

The gap arithmetic: Oct 22, 2001 to Oct 22, 2002 is 365 days (2002 is not a leap year), and Oct 22 to Oct 29 adds 7, for 372 days.

The PC share sum: 33.6 + 2.6 = 36.2% of fiscal 2003 net sales.

Left out: a widely reported dispute over the game's portrayal of Haitians, because we could not open a primary source for it before publication. We will add it when we can source it properly.

The setup

IGN's launch review sets it plainly: "you're an Italian mafia member who's just finished a 15-year sentence in jail." In IGN's summary, Tommy lands in trouble with his boss, Sonny Forelli, and sets out in Vice City to find who set him up and recover the lost money. From there the story, as IGN noted, "often gets side-tracked from the original theme," and the properties Tommy acquires represent, in IGN's words, "the growing power" of the new man in town.

Rockstar's own later summary, in its 2012 anniversary release, is that the game took GTA III's open world and "combined with nostalgia for the 1980s."

What it changed

The useful comparison is with GTA III, one year earlier, on the same console. This delta table is drawn from IGN's launch review.

Supporting voices in IGN's review include Luis Guzman, Danny Trejo, Gary Busey, David Paymer and Lawrence Taylor, and Lazlow Jones as a DJ.

The unglamorous point is that all of this arrived on the same console, one year later. That is why the release cadence matters.

Why it mattered: the share-of-company table

Here is Vice City next to the other two 3D-era Grand Theft Auto games in Take-Two's own reports. Each figure is one title's share of Take-Two's total net sales for that fiscal year.

Two readings come out of it. First, 33.6% is the highest single-title share in any year from fiscal 2001 to 2005 in these filings, ahead of GTA III's 29.8% and San Andreas's 25.6%. Adding the PC version, 33.6 + 2.6 = 36.2% of fiscal 2003 net sales came from Vice City alone, before counting the Double Pack. Second, the three days at the end of fiscal 2002 were worth 7.5% of the year. That is the clearest numerical sign that GTA had stopped being a single hit.

The unit statements tell the same story. In March 2004, Vice City stood at "over 11.5 million" shipped against "over 10.5 million" for GTA III. By October 2004 it was "over 13 million" against "over 11 million." By Rockstar's count the sequel had overtaken the original within a year and a half of its release. Our sales history page puts these alongside the rest of the series.

Reception

IGN called Vice City "a spectacular piece of videogame technology and design" and singled out Liotta: "Rockstar has truly found the right person and the right voice." At E3 2003, Sony Computer Entertainment America named the PS2 version its Game of the Year and Best Adventure Game in its Publisher's Choice Awards, according to Take-Two.

Not every note was praise. IGN called the lack of swimming hard to explain and asked for better saving.

Legacy

Rockstar's own framing, in its 2012 anniversary release, is that Vice City "turned the open-world series from a critically acclaimed bestseller into a cultural phenomenon." Sam Houser said in the same release that the game "is everything we loved about the 80's packed into a sprawling open world action game."

The city returned in Vice City Stories, and the original was remastered in Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition on Nov 11, 2021.

Most of all, Vice City is the place GTA VI goes back to. Rockstar's GTA VI site names the state as Leonida, "the Goodtime State," and the city as Vice City, USA. The game is set to launch on Nov 19, 2026. That makes the 1980s Vice City the main point of comparison fans have for the new one, 24 years after the original.

Trivia

• GTA VI Ultimate Edition copy on the PlayStation Store names a location called "the Vercetti Estate." Rockstar has not said what, if anything, it has to do with Tommy.
• Vice City reached Japan late, through Capcom. In December 2003 Take-Two said it expected a March 2004 release; on Mar 4, 2004 it said the date had moved from its second fiscal quarter to its third.
• The 2012 iOS 10th Anniversary Edition sold for $4.99 and added a scalable, customizable interface, new camera controls, upgraded textures and a longer draw distance, per Rockstar.

Sources

• Take-Two 10-K, fiscal 2001
• Take-Two 10-K, fiscal 2002
• Take-Two 10-K, fiscal 2003
• Take-Two 10-K, fiscal 2004
• Take-Two 10-K, fiscal 2005
• Take-Two Q2 fiscal 2003 results, May 29 2003
• Take-Two Q3 fiscal 2003 results, Sep 3 2003
• Take-Two Q4 fiscal 2003 results, Dec 18 2003
• Take-Two Q1 fiscal 2004 results, Mar 4 2004
• Rockstar Games Announces Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Mar 1 2004
• Rockstar Games Ships Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Oct 25 2004
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City 10th Anniversary Edition Now Available for iOS, Dec 6 2012
• Rockstar Games on PlayStation Blog, The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition coming November 11, Oct 22 2021
• Vandal, Rockstar recuerda al fallecido Ray Liotta, May 27 2022
• IGN, Douglass C. Perry, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Review, Oct 28 2002, checked on the Wayback snapshot
• IGN, Steve Butts, GTA Vice City Review (PC), May 22 2003, checked on the Wayback snapshot
• Metacritic, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
• GTA VI Forum fact base (FACTS.md F1, F43, F45), citing Rockstar Newswire, Nov 6 2025, rockstargames.com/VI and the PlayStation Store listing