Grand Theft Auto VI is nine days from launch, and the company behind it now expects one holiday quarter to bring in more money than the six months before it combined.
Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games, confirmed on November 9 that the game will release on November 19, 2026, for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S. It was the company’s last earnings report before launch, and the date held.
That date has moved before. Rockstar first targeted fall 2025, then pushed the game to May 26, 2026, and in November 2025 shifted it again. Preloads are now rolling out worldwide, Take-Two President Karl Slatoff said in remarks prepared for the earnings call.
One quarter bigger than half a year
Take-Two forecasts net bookings of $3.35 billion to $3.5 billion for October through December 2026. Net bookings is the company’s main sales measure and covers full games, add-ons and in-game purchases.
From April to September, Take-Two booked $2.99 billion. Even the low end of the holiday forecast beats those two quarters added together, according to a breakdown of the filing by StockTitan.
The numbers behind the launch:
- Release: November 19, 2026, on PS5 and Xbox Series X and S. No PC version or date has been announced.
- Price: $79.99 for the standard edition and $99.99 for the Ultimate Edition, set when pre-orders opened in June.
- Holiday quarter forecast: nearly double the $1.76 billion Take-Two booked in the same quarter of 2025.
- Full-year forecast: $8 billion to $8.2 billion, unchanged since May.
- Audience: an extended look at the game on Netflix drew 31 million viewers in its first four days, CEO Strauss Zelnick said.
The months before launch were weaker. Net bookings for July to September fell 18% to $1.60 billion, slightly below the company’s own forecast. Take-Two pointed to NBA 2K27, which came in under plan despite strong sales.
The launch is also expensive. Take-Two expects operating costs to rise about 21% from a year earlier, mostly from GTA VI marketing.
Record pre-orders, but no count
Take-Two has not said how many copies have been pre-ordered. In the November 9 earnings release, Zelnick said pre-orders are “continuing to reach unprecedented levels,” as reported by 24/7 Wall St.
He has avoided turning that into a sales target. On the August earnings call, Zelnick told analysts the company did not know how pre-orders would translate into sales. “We just don’t believe in claiming victory before it occurs,” he said, according to Dot Esports.
Chief Financial Officer Lainie Goldstein went further in remarks prepared for this week’s call. She described the pre-order level as extraordinary and said the company is “exceedingly optimistic about the rest of the year.” The full-year forecast still did not move.
Rockstar’s last launch of this scale offers a reference point. When Red Dead Redemption 2 came out in October 2018, Take-Two’s quarterly net bookings reached $1.569 billion, 2.4 times the level of a year earlier. The company then forecast far lower sales for the following quarter.
Take-Two’s current numbers imply a similar curve. Its full-year forecast leaves roughly $1.5 billion to $1.9 billion for January to March 2027, close to the $1.58 billion of the same months this year.
Rockstar also has not said whether GTA VI will get an online mode. It describes the game as a single-player experience, while GTA Online, launched alongside GTA V in 2013, is still receiving updates.