Analyst Mat Piscatella is shedding light on the massive impact of GTA 6's delay.
If you want to know just how big of a deal delaying Grand Theft Auto 6 is by at least a quarter, you'll want to listen to what Circana analyst Mat Piscatella has to say.
Shortly after Rockstar Games dropped the devastating news, Piscatella hopped on a call with GameSpot to talk about the effect this will have on the video game industry.
Mind you, Piscatella's analysis does not paint a pretty picture.
Piscatella compared GTA 6 to EA Sports College Football 25, the first entry in the Electronic Arts sports franchise in over a decade. The game was a massive success and ended up setting a record as the best-selling sports video game of all time in four months, with up to 2.2 million players opting to buy the $99.99 Deluxe Edition version of the game ahead of its launch.
According to Piscatella, releasing GTA 6 later this year could've helped "reinvigorate investor interest", which could help the entire video game industry as it finds itself affected by tariffs and investment firms pulling back funding after failing to sustain its growth following the global pandemic from 2020 to 2022.
Piscatella explains that no one benefits from the GTA 6 delay, describing the game as a "big driver" for the holiday season while setting expectations for video game spending to drop to the lowest since before 2020.
While a more positive way of looking at the GTA 6 delay would be to say that this paves the way for consumers to spend their money on other games, Piscatella isn't quite so convinced.
In his words, "a bunch of the dollars that would have been spent on gaming this year have disappeared" because of the GTA 6 delay, emphasizing its importance.
This is a sentiment previously touched on by Newzoo's Emmanual Rosier and Ben Porter with Sony's Greg Rice expressing optimism in GTA 6's positive impact.
Perhaps GTA 6 was also the reason why Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki projected a record-setting fiscal year for PlayStation 5 sales this holiday season, although Ghost of Yotei will certainly move sales.
For what it's worth, the impending price increase for the PlayStation and PlayStation 5 Pro after Nintendo and Xbox confirmed their own price hikes is expected to drive up sales immediately.
With that said, now that GTA 6 is set to release on May 26, 2026, Microsoft Gaming and Electronic Arts, who were previously believed to be holding back information, can finally start confirming when their biggest games are coming out.
Whether they can generate enough interest to plug the massive hole left behind by GTA 6 remains to be seen.
As for Take-Two Interactive, the company's CEO Strauss Zelnick will have some explaining to do at the next earnings call on May 15.
After promising the proverbial moon, investors will want something more substantial other than just Borderlands 4 and Mafia: The Old Country
