Millions of PlayStation fans will need to spend at least £429.99 to play Grand Theft Auto VI when it releases in the UK on May 26, 2026. According to the latest figures published by Sony, 54.1 million monthly active users on its PlayStation Network still rely on PlayStation 4 consoles. Those players won’t be able to access GTA 6.
Yes, Rockstar Games has only confirmed plans to release Grand Theft Auto 6 on PlayStation 5, PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S. Executives at parent company Take-Two Interactive have hinted at interest in a version for the Nintendo Switch 2, but nothing has been confirmed yet.
There’s also no word on the blockbuster game being retrofitted for older console generations, like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, at any time in the future. Based on previous Grand Theft Auto releases, we’d expect to see a PC version of the satirical crime-thriller land on store shelves one year after the console launch.
In its latest quarterly earnings call, Sony confirmed that it has now sold over 74.9 million PS5 consoles as of December 31, 2024. The number of monthly active users on PlayStation Network reached a record high of 129 million during the same quarter — a whopping 43% increase from December 2017.
With some (very) rough maths, we can deduce that around 54.1 million gamers on the PlayStation Network every month are not using a PlayStation 5 or PS5 Pro. That’s roughly 40% of the total subscribers …or around 2 in 5 players.
That’s a dramatic reduction since last year, when 50% of all PlayStation gamers were using the previous generation of console. During that time, Sony increased PlayStation 5 console prices in the UK to a record high.
If you’re one of the people still gaming on a 11-year-old PS4 console, you’re going to have to make a change if you want to test out Grand Theft Auto VI. The good news? You’ve got a little more time to save up for the latest console generation from Sony.
Originally scheduled to launch sometime later this year, Rockstar Games shocked fans with confirmation that its next instalment in the Grand Theft Auto franchise is now coming on May 26, 2026.
Grand Theft Auto VI will follow a modern-day Bonnie-and-Clyde duo in a fictional version of the US State of Florida ROCKSTAR GAMES | TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE
Just four days later, Rockstar Games released the second trailer for its feverishly-anticipated Grand Theft Auto game. The company broke records with the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto VIback in December 2023 in December 2023, confirming the game’s return to Vice City, a fictional take on Miami, and introducing Lucia, the franchise’s first female lead. This is the first time gamers will return to Vice City since 2006’s Vice City Stories.
The teaser hinted at a modern-day Bonnie-and-Clyde duo and drew more than 100 million views within 24 hours.
Rockstar Games has provided a lot more detail about the plotline of its new title in the second trailer, which raced to 45 million views on YouTube in the first 12 hours online. In the caption for the video, the developers have shared a brief summary of the plotline for Grand Theft Auto VI. It reads: “Jason and Lucia have always known the deck is stacked against them.
Rockstar Games has released the second trailer for its hotly-anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI game, which is widely-expected to become the biggest-selling video of all-time at launch ROCKSTAR GAMES | TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE
“But when an easy score goes wrong, they find themselves on the darkest side of the sunniest place in America, in the middle of a conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida — forced to rely on each other more than ever if they want to make it out alive.”
This is the first time that Rockstar Games has confirmed the names of both protagonists set to star in the name.
Rockstar Games hasn’t confirmed the existence of a PC version of the next Grand Theft Auto game. However, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick was recently asked whether the Grand Theft Auto VI would make its way over to PC players and replied: “Rockstar has an approach to platforms which we’ve seen before, and they’ll make more announcements in due time.
“I do believe that the right strategy for our business is to be where the consumer is, and historically what this company has done is address consumers anywhere they are, on any platform that makes sense over time.”
Players will follow a couple, Jason and Lucia, in the next instalment of Grand Theft Auto, which includes the return of fictional city of Vice City for the first time since spin-off game, Vice City StoriesROCKSTAR GAMES | TAKE-TWO INTERACTIVE
That seems like a pretty strong hint that Rockstar Games will follow the same release strategy as previous entries in the Grand Theft Auto series. The Scottish studio has historically prioritised console releases, before launching a PC version of the same game within a few years of the original release date.
With Grand Theft Auto VI confirmed to launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S next year, we could see a PC version of the satirical crime thriller launch sometime in early 2027 or beyond.
When the launch finally arrives, Grand Theft Auto fans will have been waiting an astonishing 13 years between instalments in the best-selling series.
During that interval, Rockstar Games has released Grand Theft Auto V on three generations of consoles, starting with the Xbox 360 and Sony PS3 back in September 2013.
An upgraded version of the game launched on the latest crop of video game consoles, Xbox Series X|S and Sony PS5, in March 2022 with support for 4K Ultra HD visuals, ray-tracing, 60 frames-per-second, and 3D audio. The continued popularity of the game is partly attributed to GTA Online.
Microsoft added Grand Theft Auto V to its Netflix-like subscription, dubbed Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, earlier this year. Subscribers can download the title and play on consoles, Smart TVs, PCs, smartphones and tablets with progress synchronised across devices.
Experts believe the next instalment in the Grand Theft Auto franchise could break its own record sales numbers. Its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto V, still holds the crown for the best opening week of sales in video game history — raking in $1.15bn (£1.2bn) in five days. It has gone on to become the second biggest game of all-time, although it’s still 100 million copies behind the Gold Medalist, Minecraft.
But many like Dmitri Williams, a video game business expert and professor at University of Southern California, expect the long-awaited follow-up to perform even better.
He said: “The brand is as strong or stronger than it was before, but additionally the game industry is larger. If it maintains the same slice of the pie, it’s going to be big, because it will come from a bigger pie.
“The games industry is simply massive globally, and is no single genre or platform. It’s so large and so varied that even fractions of it are larger than whole parallel industries like movies.”
When it finally goes on-sale, Grand Theft Auto VI looks set to dominate the gaming world, with analysts predicting record-breaking sales of $3 billion in its first year… especially if whispers about a price rise for the blockbuster title are to be believed, then revenue could be supercharged by the launch too.
