Dread it, run from it – the Grand Theft Auto 6 delay arrived, as many assumed it would. While former Rockstar technical lead Obbe Vermeij is taking it positively, Circana’s Mat Piscatella believes it will significantly impact the industry.
Speaking to GamesRadar+, the analyst said the open-world title is “a game that would bring relapsed players back to the consoles in particular and would have been a driver of incremental hardware sales. It would also, if successful, have brought potential growth months to the industry (again, particularly on the console side) and may have even worked to reinvigorate investor interest in the segment.
“I don’t think anyone benefits in 2025 from this push. It wasn’t looming over the holiday season. It was going to be a big driver of what success potential the holiday season had.” Piscatella believes total video game spending in the United States will “fall in the mid-single-digit percentage range, with spending falling to the lowest level since before the pandemic. Due to further uncertainties around pricing and product availability, there is also the potential for significant downside from there.”
“Uncertainties around pricing” likely refers to the tariffs and their impact on console and game pricing. Nintendo already announced a price increase for its Nintendo Switch 2 accessories ahead of the July 5th launch (with the $80 price point for games already garnering backlash). Microsoft has also increased the price of its Xbox Series X/S worldwide, with first-party titles to adopt an $80 price from Fall onwards, depending on their scale.
As for Grand Theft Auto 6, it launches on May 26th, 2026, for Xbox Series X/S and PS5. The delay is allegedly due to Rockstar management avoiding “brutal crunch” and is supported by Take-Two Interactive, which still expects strong net record bookings from this fiscal year.
