According to Arvind Bhatia, an analyst at Sterne Agee, Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto V will sell 14 million copies during its launch period, reports GameSpot. A year after Grand Theft Auto IV launched in 2008, the game managed to ship 13 million units, so Bhatia is clearly estimating figures based on the numbers produced by the last entry in the crime-themed open world action-adventure series.

While he didn’t specify a time frame, the analyst stated that Grand Theft Auto V would rake in $700 million in revenue for Take-Two Interactive. A hefty sum, no doubt, and given the popularity of the franchise, it wouldn’t be surprising.

Bhatia also went on to say that Grand Theft Auto V would hit retailers during the first quarter of 2013, claiming that the game would launch before the end of March next year.

Rockstar has a nice little routine. It releases a game every year, and it makes some heavy dough. This year’s big game from the publisher was Max Payne 3, which has already sold three million units on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 collectively, and is already on its way to PC. Will Grand Theft Auto V launch next year and succeed? Yeah, that will probably happen.

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