FC 27 Reportedly Outsells GTA VI in Pre Orders: Here's What's Really Going On

Quick answer: EA Sports FC 27's priciest edition is currently ranked above GTA VI's top edition on PlayStation Store charts in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Turkey. That is a store ranking, not a confirmed sales report, and it does not hold up the same way everywhere. On Steam, FC 27 was nowhere near the same position that same weekend.

Still, for a series that gets called repetitive by its own fanbase every single year, that headline made a lot of people stop scrolling.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED?

Screenshots of PlayStation Store rankings began circulating in late July, showing the EA Sports FC 27 Ultimate Plus Edition sitting ahead of the GTA VI Ultimate Edition on best selling lists across a long list of European storefronts. Gaming outlets picked it up within days, and it quickly turned into one of the more talked about stories of the summer. NBA 2K27's top tier edition showed a similar pattern on the US store, also edging past GTA VI.

None of this comes from an official sales report by EA, Sony, or Rockstar. It is based on public store rankings and screenshots shared by community accounts, which matters when you are deciding how much weight to put on the word "outsells."

Breaking Down the Price Gap

Why the $150 Tier Exists At All?

Here is the detail that made people do a double take. The FC 27 Ultimate Plus Edition runs $149.99, or about £139.99, making it the single most expensive edition EA has ever attached to the franchise. GTA VI's Ultimate Edition, for comparison, sits at $99.99. So the game everyone expected to dominate the conversation this year is currently trailing a football title that costs fifty dollars more on the same storefront.

NBA 2K27 ran the identical playbook with its own $149.99 Ultra Edition, and it is seeing a comparable bump against GTA VI on US charts.

What makes this land differently is that FC's premium tiers got mocked heavily the moment they were announced. Plenty of fans called the $150 price tag excessive online. A lot of those same people appear to have complained and pre ordered anyway.

IS THIS REALLY A GTA VI PROBLEM?

Not in any meaningful sense. A couple of things are doing most of the work behind that headline.

WHAT PLAYSTATION STORE RANKINGS ACTUALLY MEASURE?

Best selling on a storefront is a ranking, not a unit count. It tells you relative order, not how many copies either game has actually moved, and neither publisher discloses that number for pre orders. There is no way to confirm the real size of the gap, or whether one exists at all once actual totals eventually get shared during an earnings call.

WHY TIMING SKEWS THE COMPARISON?

Pre order momentum tends to build as a release date gets closer, and GTA VI's real surge is almost certainly still ahead of it. FC 27 launches sooner, so its window is already running at full speed while GTA VI's audience is still months out from needing to commit.

There is also a structural piece worth naming directly.

THE ULTIMATE TEAM EFFECT: WHY SPORTS GAMES WIN PRE ORDERS

This is really a Ultimate Team story more than a football story. EA Sports FC's flagship mode has spent over a decade training a large, loyal base of players to pay upfront for early access, player packs, and in game currency bundled straight into premium editions. That is a fundamentally different purchase behavior than a one time open world game people have been waiting years to play.

Comparing the two head to head flattens a lot of context that actually matters.

WHAT TAKE TWO'S OWN NUMBERS SAY ABOUT THE BIGGER PICTURE

Put plainly, roughly four out of every five dollars Take Two currently earns comes from people spending inside games they already own, not from someone buying a brand new title off the shelf. GTA V alone has sold in nearly 230 million units cumulatively through the end of fiscal 2026, and it is still one of the company's largest ongoing revenue drivers a decade after release, largely through GTA Online spending rather than new box sales.

That context reframes the whole FC 27 story. Premium editions loaded with in game currency and cosmetic bonuses are not a gimmick publishers are testing out. They are already the financial backbone of the industry's biggest companies, and $150 tiers are simply the newest version of a model that has been working for years.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GTA VI ACTUALLY LAUNCHES?

Once GTA VI is actually available to buy rather than just pre order, expect the entire conversation to flip. Pre order charts reward whichever game is closest to release and whichever purchase habit is most established. Launch week sales reward the game people have been waiting years for.

Take Two's Consumer Recurrent Spending Growth

THE BOTTOM LINE

FC 27 topping a handful of PlayStation Store charts is a genuinely fun headline, and it says something real about how well Ultimate Team loyalty converts into upfront spending. It is not evidence that people care less about GTA VI, and Take Two's own guidance makes that clear better than any store ranking could. Once November 19 arrives, expect this comparison to look very different.

FAQ : 

Q. DID FC 27 REALLY OUTSELL GTA VI?

Not in terms of confirmed total sales. EA Sports FC 27's Ultimate Plus Edition currently ranks above GTA VI's Ultimate Edition on PlayStation Store best selling charts in several European countries. Neither EA nor Take Two has released official pre order numbers for either game.

Q. WHY IS FC 27 MORE EXPENSIVE THAN GTA VI?

The FC 27 Ultimate Plus Edition costs $149.99, about 50 percent more than GTA VI's $99.99 Ultimate Edition. It is the first time EA has priced a top tier FC bundle that high, adding extra Ultimate Team content, early access, and pre order player bonuses.

Q. WHEN DOES GTA VI COME OUT?

Rockstar has set GTA VI to launch on November 19, 2026, after two delays pushed it back from its original 2025 target and a planned May 2026 release.

Q. DOES THIS RANKING HOLD UP ON OTHER PLATFORMS?

No. The trend is specific to PlayStation Store charts. On Steam, FC 27 ranked far outside the top selling titles the same weekend it was leading PlayStation rankings across Europe.

Q. WILL GTA VI STILL BE THE BIGGEST RELEASE OF 2026?

By Take Two's own projections, yes. The company's fiscal 2027 guidance forecasts record net bookings of $8 billion to $8.2 billion, and it directly credits GTA VI's November 19 launch as the main driver of that growth.