Everyone is asking whether Grand Theft Auto VI will break records, but an analyst believes they are keeping an eye on the wrong thing. If you ask Mat Piscatella, Circana's director of video games, the game is not the risk, the console it runs on is. A pricey PS5 and a shrinking pool of players who own one could cap the launch more than anything Rockstar Games puts in the game.
Piscatelle made the case in the same interview where he called the industry's GTA 6 fear overblown. "The hardware is probably a bigger wild card than the game itself," he said. The reason for his worry? The price point. A console sitting around $700 can disappoint buyers who still think of a PS5 as a $300 to $400 machine.
It isn't only the PlayStation either. Microsoft raised Xbox Series prices in August, right before launch, pushing the top Series X to $749.99 in the US with the steepest hikes, up to 50 percent, falling on Europe. A global memory shortage is said to be the cause, but the timing means both the only consoles to get the biggest Grand Theft Auto ever got more expensive in the run-up to the generation-defining title.
The install-base is the problem. Piscatella points out the current base of PS5 and Xbox Series consoles is smaller than the PS3 and Xbox 360 base that Grand Theft Auto V sold into in 2013. The Xbox is especially thin here, at an estimated 35 million Series consoles against more than 95 million PS5s. GTA 6 has no announced PC version at launch either, so the number of machines that can run it on day one is hard capped at those who only have a PS5 and Xbox Series S/X. Fewer consoles in homes means fewer copies sold on launch day, no matter how badly people want it.
The demand side is already showing strain. In Japan, Sony is playwalling the PS5 Pro, requiring buyers to have logged at least 60 hours of PS4 or PS5 play just to enter a purchase lottery for a console that costs 137,980 yen. The two-year window for logging those hours had already closed when applications opened, so nobody could rush to qualify. Sony hasn't blamed GTA 6 for this, but with PS5 Pro stock already selling out in the US, it's likely one of the factors.
When a company makes you prove a gaming résumé before it will sell you a console, supply is clearly the pressure point.
This is the friction GTA V never had. In 2013 the game walked into tens of millions of consoles already sitting in living rooms, ready to buy on day one. GTA 6 is asking a big slice of its audience to buy or upgrade a console first, at a price that stings, before they can even play and this is on top of everything else Rockstar and Take-Two Interactive are selling surrounding GTA 6.
It is why the hardware question matters as much as the debate over whether the PS5 sales bump is even about GTA 6.
The GTA 6 Hardware Problem
Factor | Why it matters |
|---|---|
Console prices | A PS5 near $700, with Xbox Series up to 50% more expensive in Europe |
Install base | About 35M Xbox and 95M-plus PS5, below GTA V's 2013 base |
No PC version at launch | The console count is a hard ceiling on day-one sales |
Supply | PS5 Pro sellouts and Japan's lottery show demand outstripping stock |
The game is ready, the question is whether enough people can afford and find a console.
With that said, GTA 6 Xbox pre-orders passed a million in a short time by one tracker's estimate and Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball says the game is breaking pre-order records on the platform. The pre-orders overall are strong enough that even TTWO boss Strauss Zelnick is not sure how to read them. Every sign of console sellouts is also a sign of real demand. GTA 6 could just as easily drive the biggest console surge in years as it could stall on people balking at the price. Nobody, Piscatella included, knows how things will play out come November 19, when plenty of its audience still has to buy a machine first.
GTA 6 looks set to post record revenue numbers either way. The only open question is whether the ceiling is set by the game or by the cost of the box you need to play it.