Grand Theft Auto is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, IPs in gaming. Naturally with the continued success of Grand Theft Auto 5 and GTA Online, the question everyone continues to ask is “When will GTA6 release?“.
Well, if the marketing budget of Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar’s parent company, are any indication, we can expect Grand Theft Auto 6 to release in 2023.
According to Venturebeat, analyst Jeff Cohen identified that Take-Two’s marketing budget in fiscal 2024 is far greater than any other year according to the company’s 10-K SEC filing:
Cohen stated the following:
“We are not sure how much we should be reading into this shift, but we would note that this disclosure accurately predicted the launch of Red Dead Redemption 2 prior to that game’s announcement,” Cohen wrote in a note to investors. “[Take-Two management] has spoken very confidently about the pipeline over the next five years and existing live services execution has been excellent. However, the timing of the next Grand Theft Auto remains top-of-mind for investors, particularly with the stock near all-time-highs.”
Our Take
Given that this method has been used to predict major games in the past, and knowing that GTA6 is still years away, this is about as accurate as we can hope at this point in time. It makes a lot of sense as well given the current state of GTA Online, the coming rollout of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, and the time needed to build such a massive title which they recently said was “In the early stages“.
