Grand Theft Auto 6 is expected to gross a staggering $3 billion in its first year of sales.
Rockstar’s long-awaited open-world crime game is scheduled for release in fall 2025 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, with no word yet on a PC release.
New report by Financial Times.based on an analysis by video game research group DFC Intelligence, GTA 6 is projected to exceed $1 billion in pre-orders before it even hits the market. To no one’s surprise, GTA 6 is expected to be the biggest entertainment release of 2025, overtaking any film or competing video game.
DFC projected that total revenue from the first 12 months of GTA 6 sales would be $3.2 billion. For comparison: the highest-grossing film of 2024, “Inside Out 2”, earned just over $1.7 billion worldwide. In 2013, Grand Theft Auto 5 took just three days to exceed $1 billion in sales, the fastest in entertainment history.
Strauss Zelnick, head of Take-Two, Rockstar’s parent company, told the Financial Times: “I never declare victory until it happens. That said, I think Rockstar Games will once again deliver something absolutely phenomenal… Expectations are certainly high.”
GTA 6’s massive projected revenues contrast with similarly massive development costs, which the Financial Times estimates range from hundreds of millions to as much as $2 billion. So a lot awaits GTA 6, but not only in the case of Take-Two and Rockstar. Last March, Circana analyst Mat Piscatella predicted that a certain Rockstar hit would spark “renewed interest” in video games, and then went a step further: “There’s probably never been a more significant thing for the industry to release, so there’s no pressure.”
GTA 6 is the kind of game that will sell consoles. Sony PS5 Pro they will undoubtedly also benefit greatly from the interest in GTA 6. Remember: GTA 6 will not be released at launch on PC; play you have to you have a PlayStation or Xbox console. Beyond the point of sale, the GTA Online equivalent of GTA 6 will certainly be full of microtransactions, just like the current GTA Online. Microsoft and Sony will also receive some of the money spent there.
As the Financial Times points out, the almost guaranteed success of GTA 6 comes during one of the most difficult periods for the video game industry in recent times. More than 33,000 people have lost their jobs since 2022, including massive layoffs at companies such as Microsoft and Sony. Indeed, Take-Two itself has suffered from layoffs and studio closures.
All eyes are on Rockstar to know the specific release date of GTA 6 or, as some predict, a delay until 2026. While we wait for the news, IGN has plenty more to check out about GTA 6, including a former Rockstar developer who says the studio will probably not be able to decide whether GTA 6 will be postponed to May 2025the head of Take-Two’s a shy answer to the question whether GTA 6 will be released on PCand expert opinion regarding Will it be possible to run GTA 6 at 60 frames per second on PS5 Pro?.
Wesley is the UK news editor at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. Wesley can be reached at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
