Grand Theft Auto VI is a few months out, and the launch is set to be one of the biggest in video game history. What those first few days actually look like is anyone’s guess. Either way, it’s going to be a monumental few weeks for the industry, no matter how good the game turns out to be.
The marketing has been ramping up over the last few weeks. Rockstar confirmed an extensive preview of the game on Netflix on August 27. But the game keeps popping up elsewhere in the meantime, which is a good sign that everything’s still ticking along nicely.
A short PlayStation clip did the work of a full trailer
Over on Twitter/X, the official PlayStation profile shared a short trailer video promising that players can “experience unforgettable moments” on the platform. Several key PlayStation games showed up in quick flashes. GTA VI was one of them.
Two clips made the cut. In one, Lucia drives away from something at speed while Jason hangs off the back of the vehicle. In the other, Jason’s on a dirt bike, fleeing a crop duster-style plane.
None of it is new footage. But its presence here, less than three months out from the current release date, should mean November is still holding.
The replies went somewhere PlayStation didn’t want
PlayStation was presumably hoping the trailer would stir up interest among players deciding where to buy the game. Instead, the responses were universally dominated by people angry about the announcement that the platform would be leaving physical media behind.
That lands harder with GTA VI than most. It’s another game skipping discs entirely, putting a code in the box instead, a practice companies like Nintendo have made commonplace over the last year or two.
And it stacks on top of the other complaint already trailing the game: several shops and features are locked behind the $100 edition.
Rockstar can afford to shrug
None of the friction around the release changes the math. GTA VI is going to be an enormous success for Rockstar. Most analysts put expected first-week turnover at anything between $3–5 billion.
Then there’s GTA Online, which will be its own cash cow whenever it launches later on.
Put those two numbers next to a wave of angry replies about disc drives, and it’s difficult to see why the developer would care for too long.
