GTA 6 revenue: could it really make $7.6B in 60 days?

GTA 6 was projected to clear $7.6 billion in its first 60 days, according to a report from GameSpot. When I first heard that number I questioned it, but the more I looked at the hype, the less wild it seemed. Around the same time, a leak about the game's online component pointed to 96 player servers, a rumor surfaced about 60fps on PS5 Pro, and Rockstar Social Club was shut down.

Each GTA 6 trailer pulled in tens of millions of views, which made it clear Rockstar Games was sitting on a gold mine. For Take 2 Interactive, this was more than a game. It was a massive investment expected to become the biggest entertainment launch in history, and the revenue projections went even higher than I had imagined.

GTA 6 revenue forecast: $7.6 billion in its first 60 days

GameSpot's report outlined revenue predictions that surpassed everything we had heard up to that point. A video game venture capital firm projected that GTA 6 would clear $7.6 billion in its first 60 days alone. My first instinct was to doubt it. Once I compared the hype around GTA 6 with other entertainment launches, though, the figure stopped looking so far-fetched.

For perspective, Avengers: Endgame, one of the highest grossing films of all time, did $2.79 billion at the box office, and it took months to reach that figure. GTA 5 generated over $1 billion in three days. GTA 6 was set to be an $80 game and one of the most hyped games of all time, from a franchise that has consistently broken sales records.

Millions of players have grown up with GTA. Many only remember GTA 5 and never experienced the launches of the earlier games, so the idea of a new one is close to a guaranteed purchase for them. Players had been waiting more than a decade for a new installment, and Rockstar built immense anticipation, which according to Strauss Zelnick is the entire goal. I believed that demand would translate into massive pre-order numbers and day one sales.

That is before word of mouth starts to carry, and before the online component arrives, which I thought would likely come a month or two after the single player game. If Rockstar got online out inside that 60 day window and started selling microtransactions and Shark Cards, I considered the $7.6 billion figure almost a given. It might even surpass it. Either way, my view was that GTA 6 would not only be a successful game but a cultural phenomenon that would make an enormous amount of money.

Detective Seeds rumor: GTA 6 at 60fps on PS5 Pro with multiple graphical settings

Next came a rumor from Detective Seeds, who first posted that they had some GTA 6 and PlayStation information they were waiting to clear before sharing. They then followed up: "GTA 6 has been and continues to hit 60fps while being optimized for the PlayStation 5 Pro on multiple graphical settings." According to the post, PlayStation engineers were assisting with the optimization because of new tech being implemented, and were also helping on several other Rockstar titles due out in the near future.

The post said that, at that point, 60fps was being achieved on the PS5 Pro only, and that this could change before release. It was anticipated that GTA 6 would have multiple graphical options on the PS5 Pro at launch. The Rockstar and PlayStation marketing deal was what allowed and encouraged the optimization work, and apparently several GTA 6 PlayStation bundles were expected in the next marketing push. Detective Seeds said the information came from a PlayStation engineer who had provided highly accurate and verified information several times in the past.

This one needed to be taken with a grain of salt, but I expected something like it. My guess was that GTA 6 would likely run at 30fps on the base PS5, with Rockstar pushing it to 60fps on the PS5 Pro. It would be weird not to have parity between the consoles, especially for the online component. Could GTA 6 hit 60fps on the base PS5? I doubted it. It was possible, but hard to say, and we would have to wait and see whether the rumor proved real.

GTA 6 online leak points to 96 player servers and seamless sessions

One of the few leaks about GTA 6's online component at the time came from a report, published as a Medium article and needing translation, claiming GTA 6 would feature 96 player servers. That would be a significant jump from GTA 5's 30 player limit. The article noted that since its launch on October 1, 2013, GTA Online had become the most lucrative source of income in Rockstar's history through its live service model.

According to an internal source cited in the article, the multiplayer project, code named GTA 6 MP, was at an advanced stage, much further along than the original GTA Online was at the same point. It was said to have initially been designed around a cloud-based approach with significantly reduced latency. Still built on a semi peer-to-peer architecture, it would benefit from a network technology called fluid access, designed to eliminate the feeling of separation between sessions.

The report said players could join activities with people from other sessions without leaving their own environment or sitting through loading screens, ending the need for menus or manual invitations before an activity. It said: "The next version of GTA Online is aiming for a smooth and immersive gameplay experience with the ambition of reaching up to 96 players simultaneously per session." It added: "However, according to the latest information, this figure is currently limited to 64 players." The article closed by cautioning that these intentions may have evolved during development, and that Rockstar may have adapted to new objectives or technical constraints.

What 96 players could mean for GTA Online

To me, that player count suggested Rockstar was building a much larger and more ambitious online world. The map was already going to be massive, so it could accommodate 96 players. I thought it was a big jump. Some GTA RP servers can support 200 plus players. Those are private servers, but they show 96 players is very possible.

We already knew the game would be densely packed with activities and points of interest, so I thought Rockstar would do its best to make this a true evolution of GTA Online. That, to me, was the biggest unknown. The single player world was going to be enormous, and Rockstar would have to use that same world for multiplayer. That opened up possibilities for new modes and mini games, street races with dozens of competitors, and gang wars spanning entire districts.

Then there were co-op missions. Imagine 10 players on one big heist. "That would be absolutely insane." My reading of the leak was that Rockstar was not only iterating on GTA Online but aiming for a complete overhaul that pushed the boundaries of online multiplayer in an open world game. The jump from 30 players to 96 was unfathomable to me, and I couldn't wait to jump into online after beating the single player game a dozen times.

Rockstar Social Club shuts down, and what might replace it

The sunsetting of Rockstar Social Club sparked considerable speculation about Rockstar's plans. Would it build a new online platform, or scrap Social Club in favor of something more immersive inside the game world? Based on the online leak, it sounded like Rockstar was going for a more immersive approach, in which case a full Social Club might not be needed. There was also speculation that Rockstar could release a better platform, redesigned from the ground up for GTA 6.

One possibility was a more integrated experience across all Rockstar titles, perhaps with a unified player profile and progression system. Previous reports had suggested Rockstar wanted something like a Roblox type experience for GTA, so a place to go online and access user generated content might be the future. At that stage it was hard to say, and everything was speculation. Either way, RIP Rockstar Social Club. It was fun while it lasted.