How Iron Man was trounced by a scruffy car thief

While vying for similar audiences at the same time, "Grand Theft Auto IV" bested "Iron Man" by about $300 million in their respective first weeks on the small and big screens. The highly anticipated video game about immigrant gangster Bellic drove away with over $500 million, while the movie about Marvel billionaire superhero Stark blasted off with over $200 million worldwide.

Each figure is a history-maker in its own right: The supercharged "GTA IV" launch topped last year's blockbuster "Halo 3" release, making it the most lucrative debut video games -and, by all accounts, entertainment in general. Meanwhile, "Iron Man" can claim the second-best non-sequel movie opening ever as a consolation prize.

Software publisher Take-Two Interactive bandied the behemoth sales figures on Wednesday, days after "Iron Man" vaunted an unexpectedly huge opening weekend box office. The eye-popping digits left many wondering how such a blockbuster could be so soundly trounced by a controverisal video game.

The simple answer: "GTA IV" costs more to buy.

"'GTA IV"s first-week performance represents the largest launch in the history of interactive entertainment, and we believe these retail sales levels surpass any movie or music launch to date," Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick said in an official statement on Wednesday.

Such comparisons aren't entirely fair. Bellic and Stark, for example, play by different rules. Video games are sold online and in stores, a distribution model more like CDs and DVDs than newly released films. However, such similarities end there, because DVDs don't usually involve completely original fare. And CDs typically only contain, well, music.

The reach is vastly different, too: "Iron Man" was released on over 7,000 movie screens while "GTA IV" was available for about 24 million Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles at launch, according to Wedbush Morgan video game analyst Michael Pachter. But to achieve its $100 million weekend milestone, "Iron Man" had to sell more than twice the number of tickets as "GTA IV" units were moved -about six million -in the first week.

Janco Parters video game analyst Mike Hickey originally suspected "GTA IV" could dampen the success of "Iron Man" since both properties were setting their targets on young adults and were being released at about the same time. That doesn't seem to have been the case.

What "GTA IV" did impact was the sale of consoles. Microsoft said Xbox 360 sales jumped 54 percent in the week following the game's launch, compared with the prior week. Sony didn't reveal similar specifics but said there has been a significant spike in PS3 sales.