It's going to be a busy holiday season this year, since GTA 6 is actually coming out in November. While people rush to pick up what may very well go down in history as the biggest video game ever, people in the know on the retail side of things warn you might want to get a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X/S now if you're planning on getting one and haven't already.
This comes from a report in The Game Business, who spoke to a senior games buyer at a retail outlet operating under anonymity. "We’ve been informed that because of the ongoing issues around hardware component availability, we won’t be getting the units we want ahead of GTA," he says. "Demand will likely outstrip supply during the year end period."
As much really reflects the state of the industry. Stock supplies have been difficult for some time now, and it was always unlikely that'd change in time for Rockstar's new crime sim. Grand Theft Auto 6 is going to shift a lot of systems, and it's difficult to anticipate or prepare for the kind of demand the sequel's going to generate.
Microsoft, at least, is aware of the strain that's coming, per comments made to The Game Business by Matthew Ball, Xbox's chief strategy officer. "I can tell you definitively, demand for our console exceeds the supply. We are putting them in as many stores as possible," he explains.
"We are producing them as quickly as possible," Ball says. "There is a severe limitation to how quickly we can do that, but it’s not a question of appetite. We need to do more, but there are constraints here."
The race is already on between Sony and Microsoft right now for who gets people's money. PlayStation is going all in, having changed the PS5 dashboard to advertise the latest GTA, and even going so far as to alter the PS app to match the aesthetic of Rockstar's new game. Whoever wins, it seems the only losers will be those stuck waiting for a system to play-through Lucia and Jason's sordid journey.
