If gaming industry analysts needed any indication that Grand Theft Auto V was the most anticipated video game of the year, then they need look no further.  According to a report from The Telegraph, the new game – which is the latest installment in the monumentally popular and crazily controversial crime series – is already sold out at Amazon.com…even though it doesn’t even officially come out until Tuesday.

Grand Theft Auto V, which will be released by the envelope-pushing Rockstar Games company this week, is on its way for both the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3. Since both Microsoft and Sony have new consoles launching in the coming months, the new game could be the last major “event release” that the 360 and the 3 will ever see. The two consoles hit the market all the way back in 2005, and after years of successful titles and big gaming release days, it seems the sun is finally setting on the console generation they helped build.

If that’s the case, though, players are certainly offering no indication that they are ready to part with the consoles.  In fact, most gamers seem to be pulling out all the stops for the release of Grand Theft Auto V, and Amazon.com’s shortage of inventory is only the first indication that the game’s popularity could turn into a far reaching phenomenon.

“Please note–due to high demand, orders placed for Grand Theft Auto V (Xbox 360) from September 13 will be shipped as soon as we receive inventory,” Amazon wrote on their site.

The game is still available for the less popular Playstation 3, but with how much buzz the Grand Theft Auto V has going into Tuesday, buyers hoping to get their hands on the game on release day will want to make sure they have their pre-orders in place. And if global web marketplace Amazon.com has already sold out, you can bet that your local video game store won’t have an infinite inventory either.

So what’s the reason for the massive demand for the new game? For one thing, it’s the first new full-version Grand Theft Auto title to hit consoles since April 2008’s Grand Theft Auto IV. The game received almost unanimously perfect reviews from industry publications and was a favorite among players as well. To add to the five-and-a-half year waiting period, Grand Theft Auto V also supposedly cost $265 million to make and market, a number that not only puts it as the most expensive video game in history, but as the second most expensive piece of entertainment ever developed (after 2007’s Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End). Needless to say, gamers are wondering what sort of exciting new gameplay features that money could have possibly bought.

(To put that dollar amount in perspective, Avatar, the most successful blockbuster of all time, only cost $237 billion.)