It's anyone's guess as to whether GTA 6 will actually release this year or not. On top of that, many are holding off announcing a release date for their games as they don't want to be overshadowed by the monumental release of GTA 6. As there is no real information about when the game is set to release, it means that other game studios are just having to guess and hope they get it right. Ben Porter, the Director of Consulting at Newzoo, says that making the wrong prediction could be disastrous for some studios.
"If you're a game company who's holding its breath waiting for GTA 6 to get out, and then it gets delayed by three, four, five, six months, what do you do?" said Porter in an interview with PC Gamer at GDC 2025.
As far as everyone knows, GTA 6 is scheduled to launch on consoles this fall, but it has yet to be announced when it will release on PC. Due to the size of the game, it's a fair assumption that the game will be delayed into 2026 at the very least. Many games have been delayed in the past couple of years, such as Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, and Assassin's Creed Shadows, most recently. While it is common for indie studios to experience some delays, triple-A titles are more heavily exposed to the limelight, making it more obvious when delays or errors come up.
When GTA 5 was first released, it made up 50% of game revenue in the US during the month, despite it being released halfway through. In the UK, GTA 5 accounted for 89% of all games sold during the week of its release and 94% of revenue, as mentioned in The Game Business Show podcast.
On top of that, studios often plan their releases around other big competitors to avoid being overshadowed and potentially losing out on crucial player numbers and sales. GTA 6 is a gargantuan competitor for studios big and small, as there hasn't been a new GTA in 12 years. There haven't been many big releases thus far that are slated to release in the same time frame as the new Rockstar Games title. Take-Two's other title, Borderlands 4, is also set to release this year. It's cutting it close to when GTA 6 is supposed to release, which has people predicting that they could be delaying GTA 6 to ensure that Borderlands 4 isn't overshadowed.
At the moment, it's anyone's guess. While there is the worry about it overshadowing and potentially crippling other studios by not having their games get enough exposure, many also think that this game could do great things for the market.
"You do hear a lot of people who are saying that GTA 6 is going to rejuvenate the market. And I think that there's an element of truth to that, but I don't know that it's necessarily going to be universally uplifting," says Porter.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
