With GTA VI now pushed six more months into November of 2026, we’ve been asking a lot of questions about how the movement of such a gaming juggernaut is impacting the rest of the industry. We’ve spoken to analysts about how this will impact 2026’s game release slate, and whether it will hit GTA VI’s sales any. But during those conversations, one analyst brought up an interesting thought experiment: could GTA VI’s delay also result in the delay of the next generation of consoles?
This question was posed by Piers Harding-Rolls, research director at Ampere Analysis. He didn’t come down on an answer one way or another, but here’s how he’s pondering the possibility:
A question I’m thinking about at the moment is: could the late arrival of GTA VI delay the launch of next-gen consoles? As the game is such an important driver of hardware sales – not just at launch but over multiple years, Sony and Microsoft will have been wanting a much earlier in the cycle release than late 2026 so they could get the full benefit. We are currently forecasting a next-gen PlayStation and Xbox to arrive in late 2027, but might the console companies be tempted to get more from the current console generation by riding the GTA VI wave and wait until 2028?
Harding-Rolls brings up a good point here. During our conversations with analysts, many of them pointed out that the current generation of consoles has had a slower adoption rate than past generations for a number of reasons: the COVID-19 pandemic made it challenging to get hardware right out of the gate when the consoles launched, consoles are more expensive now and there’s a lot of economic uncertainty, and a lot of major new games are still being released on the last generation of consoles anyway. GTA VI, they say, is expected to speed up adoption of the current generation of consoles, with many people waiting specifically for the current-gen-exclusive GTA VI to finally make the purchase. It stands to reason that hardware manufacturers wouldn’t want to begin talking about the next generation of consoles if they felt there was still money on the table with the current generation, and if that adoption is pushed back later, so too is the next generation.
When I posed Harding-Rolls’ question back to the other analysts to see what they thought, they didn’t think we should worry too much about a delayed next-gen due to GTA VI, specifically:
“What would Sony actually gain by delaying the PS6? Assuming they’re aiming for a late 2027 release window, that’s already a full year AFTER the launch of GTA 6,” said George Jijiashvili, senior principal analysts at Omdia. “So they’d be delaying a whole generation for some extra hardware sales driven by people buying GTA 6 over a year after launch? It doesn’t make sense. Also, why would Sony/Microsoft want to prioritize selling current-generation consoles for longer, versus getting people to buy the next-gen consoles As Soon As Possible? Just like GTA 5, GTA 6 will be cross-gen and it will address the PS5/XSX/S generation owners for years to come.
“As a side note, currently we think that PS6 is most likely to launch for 2028 – even if we did think it would be 2027, we wouldn’t have shifted it due to GTA 6 delay.”
Rhys Elliott, head of market analysis at Alinea Analytics, felt the same way, including pointing out that he thought 2027 for next-gen consoles feels too early, regardless of where GTA VI falls.
“From the perspective of PlayStation and Xbox, delaying next-gen hardware just because GTA VI moved its release date doesn’t make strategic or operational sense. Console launches require massive multi-year planning across manufacturing, chip supply contracts, global logistics, retail coordination, and first-party software schedules. These timelines are locked far in advance and are hard to shift without serious financial and operational consequences.
“…It would also expose Sony and Microsoft to unnecessary risk. The supply chain has proven fragile over the past few years, and major macroeconomic shifts could easily disrupt production again. Worse still, GTA VI itself could be delayed once more, leaving platform holders with a stretched strategy anchored to a moving target.”
With a year still to go until GTA VI’s release, it will nonetheless be worth watching and revisiting this question later on, especially as we begin to hear more rumors and whispers of next-gen console plans. We’re also watching the other impacts of GTA VI’s delay and eventual release, including who wins and who loses from the delay, the internet’s reaction to the news, how analysts think this will impact 2026’s release calendar, and what Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick had to say about it.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
