Take-Two says GTA 6 demand can overcome higher console prices
A GTA 6-ready PS5 now starts at $599.99, and Take-Two is betting fans will still pay up for the November 19 launch.
The real bill for GTA 6 is rising before Rockstar has even shipped the game, and Strauss Zelnick is betting the franchise is strong enough to muscle through it. Take-Two Interactive used its fiscal fourth-quarter 2026 results on May 21 to keep Grand Theft Auto VI on track for November 19, 2026, even as Sony and Microsoft have pushed up U.S. console prices.
On Sony’s side, the entry point is no longer cheap. The PlayStation 5 Digital Edition now costs $599.99 in the United States, the standard PS5 is $649.99, and the PS5 Pro sits at $899.99 after Sony’s April 2 price changes. Sony also lifted the PlayStation Portal remote player to $249.99, a reminder that even the add-on ecosystem around PlayStation is getting more expensive. For anyone still sitting on older hardware, that turns the jump to GTA 6 into a full console purchase, not a casual day-one impulse.
Microsoft has already done something similar on the Xbox side. The company announced U.S. pricing updates for the Series S and Series X effective October 3, 2025, citing macroeconomic conditions. That means the cost pressure is not just a Sony problem. It is part of the next-console reality facing the entire GTA audience.
Take-Two’s own numbers explain why it is comfortable making that bet. GTA V has sold nearly 230 million units, giving Rockstar one of the biggest built-in audiences in gaming. Fiscal 2026 net bookings came in at $6.72 billion, fiscal fourth-quarter net bookings were $1.58 billion, and recurrent consumer spending accounted for 82% of total net bookings in the quarter. Take-Two also set fiscal 2027 net bookings guidance at $8.0 billion to $8.2 billion, with GTA 6 as the clear driver.
That is the core of the price debate: the demand is real, but so is the friction. A player coming from GTA V still has to clear a several-hundred-dollar hardware hurdle before even thinking about launch day, and on PlayStation that hurdle now starts at $599.99 and can climb to $899.99. Take-Two is betting the pull of GTA 6 is strong enough to overcome that barrier, and given the size of the GTA base, that is not an absurd bet. It is just a very expensive one.
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