With Rockstar North's epic for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, Grand Theft Auto IV, doing pretty well on the sales side and the critical acclaim side, it's certainly no surprise that a lot of consoles are also flying off the shelves, with the need to play this open-sandbox game as the justification. But just how many of these consoles flying off the shelves are bought with the sole reason of playing Grand Theft Auto 4 in mind? Well, it seems in the Xbox 360 side, 40% of the green machines being sold have the game going with them.

This comes directly from Major Nelson podcast co-host e, who cited the statistics in the latest talk session with some of the industry's big celebrities. Here's his quote, verbatim: "Roughly 40 percent of consoles going out the door had a copy of GTA going with them."

While it's certainly good that the game is generating a lot of interest, to the point that people are willing to buy a next-gen console just for the experience, we have to wonder just where the stats apply to. Does it apply strictly to the US market, or all over the world? We hope that Microsoft will give light on that particular aspect of this bit of news. In any case, updates as we get them.