Every player who experienced GTA: Liberty City Chapters had high praise for the ga.
Most people admired how genuinely fun it was.
Putting aside the story for a mont, the sheer variety of gaplay alone was enough to keep many players entertained for hundreds or even thousands of hours.
Takayuki spent about a week—roughly 100 hours—leisurely playing through the main ga.
And even then, he had only scratched the surface.
The entire city is open to exploration, filled with countless secrets waiting to be discovered.
In terms of detail, this ga surpassed most titles before it.
Even picking up trash off the street felt interesting.
In Liberty City, you could be a high-class citizen, taking on a variety of professional roles.
...
...
Or, you could live as an unnoticed nobody—or even a street beggar.
While this doesn't affect the main story much, your character's social status does impact side quests and how NPCs treat you.
If you beco an upper-class figure, your walking posture changes, people on the street might recognize you, and so will even try to start conversations.
If you end up as a holess drifter, NPCs will look down on you. So will avoid you entirely.
However, this chanic didn't connect seamlessly with the main storyline—a small flaw.
But it was more of an experintal feature.
The idea was to see how different social statuses could influence character interactions.
This system would later be further developed in Cyberpunk 2077.
That ga had already included different social backgrounds, but those identities were still too detached from the main story. Takayuki wanted to experint early and find a better way to integrate them.
Now, it seed there was only one solution: divide the main storyline into multiple parallel narratives—no shortcuts, no single linear path.
Back to Liberty City Chapters, players loved the main story because of how real it felt.
The story played out like sothing that had truly happened... or perhaps it had happened, just retold in ga form.
Soon, lore-hunters started digging into real-world parallels for the plot.
Takayuki hadn't based the story on any real events—but real life often writes stories more absurd than fiction.
Resourceful fans actually found similar events in Arican history, and dubbed the ga "a concentrated display of the Arican Dream."
So even began calling Takayuki a "god" in a more literal sense.
Previously, "Ga God Takayuki" was mostly an affectionate nickna—an honorary title for an industry leader. Few truly viewed him as divine... except for so Japanese fans.
So Japanese people really did start to deify him—placing his portrait on household altars in a bizarre turn of events.
Most people still took it as a joke or gesture of respect.
But this ti, things felt different.
How could a man who lived in Japan understand the harsh realities of life at the bottom of Arican society so deeply?
Just look at Liberty City Chapters—its level of detail captured emotions and struggles that would be hard to replicate without firsthand experience.
So Arican players even felt a twinge of regret.
Regret that this ga wasn't made by Aricans.
Surely, it should have been people living in the U.S. who created such a gripping, authentic depiction of its underbelly.
But it was Takayuki who did it.
With all this buzz, GTA: Liberty City Chapters sold over 5 million copies in its first week—leaving all other releases of the sa period in the dust.
Gastar's new ga console also sold exceptionally well.
Thanks to its higher performance, the console could fully showcase all of Liberty City Chapters' features—so sales naturally followed.
And of course, it wasn't just GTA.
GTA was rated 18 , a mature title.
Even if underage players found ways to play it, the sales process strictly enforced age checks.
Other launch titles included new entries in the Zelda and Mario franchises—true evergreen series suitable for all ages, with wide appeal.
So kids might have secretly wanted to play GTA, but promised their parents they'd be playing Mario or Zelda instead.
Final numbers:
GTA: Liberty City Chapters sold 5.3 million copies in week one.
The new console sold 7.6 million units in the sa ti.
Clearly, an economic downturn didn't dampen the players' love for great gas.
One curious statistic stood out:
So players bought the new console without purchasing any new gas.
Why?
They wanted to replay older titles in higher resolution and fra rates.
The new console supported backward compatibility, and many older gas were on sale. Players could buy discounted classics and enjoy them on superior hardware.
Originally, Gastar only expected about 5 million console sales at launch. But this extra reason gave them a significant unexpected boost.
In response, Gastar's COO, Makoto Matsuhashi, imdiately ordered factories to ramp up production and add new lines to et demand.
If players got impatient—and if the economic slowdown made them hesitate—lost sales could follow.
anwhile, Surei Electronics and Microforce, both of whom also made consoles, were green with envy.
Gastar was raking in profits so aggressively that they were nearing monopoly levels in the gaming industry.
Still, the global gaming market was huge. There were places Gastar couldn't reach—so Surei and Microforce were at least able to ride the wave and make so modest gains.
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