Grand Theft Auto V

First-day sales of “Grand Theft Auto V” topped $800 million worldwide, surpassing the record set by “Call of Duty: Black Ops II” last November.

The debut was the biggest ever for the company or for “Grand Theft Auto,” New York-based Take-Two said yesterday in a statement. It also beat the $500 million reported for the last “Call of Duty,” which publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI) said then was an opening-day record.

The fast start is outpacing projections for as much as $1 billion at retail in the first month. Revenue from the first two weeks of “Grand Theft Auto” alone may exceed estimates for all of Take-Two during the quarter that ends in September, according to Michael Olson, an analyst with Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis, who has a buy rating on the stock.

“We couldn’t be more pleased with the launch,” Chief Executive Officer Strauss Zelnick said yesterday at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in New York.

Take-Two rose as much as 7 percent to $18.45 in extended trading. The shares gained 1.2 percent to $17.20 yesterday in New York, bringing the advance this year to 56 percent.

“Our initial forecast of 14 million units by the end of the September quarter now appears very conservative,” Olson wrote in a research note. He said the game could sell as many as 25 million units by the end of March.