The release of GTA 6 (Grand Theft Auto VI) is unlikely to happen before 2023. This can be inferred from the new marketing report presented by Take-Two for the coming years. At least, this is indicated by the distribution of the budget.
What’s new? Take-Two has released the marketing budget plans for the coming years. Notably, in fiscal year 2024, twice as much money is expected to be spent on marketing as in fiscal years 2023 or 2025.
It is now suspected that these high expenditures are related to the promotion of a new game. There is hope that this could be GTA 6. However, this is not confirmed.
What does Take-Two say about marketing expenses?
This is stated in the report: Take-Two plans to spend at least $89 million on marketing in fiscal year 2024 (which runs from April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024). That is more than double what is planned for any other of the next fiscal years.
This information comes from a “10-K SEC” report from the company (via take2games.com).
An analyst sees clear signs for GTA 6
Why the high expenses? Jeff Cohen, an analyst at the investment firm Stephens, explains the high expenses with the release of GTA 6 (via VentureBeat).
In his report, Cohen writes that these expenses were initially planned for fiscal year 2023, but have now apparently been postponed by a year.
Thus, the analyst initially assumed that GTA 6 would be released in fiscal year 2023. Now the expenditures have been pushed back by a year.
“We are not sure how much we should read into this shift. But we would like to point out that this disclosure [of the marketing budget] accurately predicted the launch of Red Dead Redemption 2 even before the game’s announcement,” writes Cohen (via stephens.2.bluematrix.com).
He also explains: “The [Take-Two] management has expressed great confidence about the pipeline for the next five years, and the implementation of live services has been excellent. The timing of the next Grand Theft Auto remains top of mind for investors, especially as the stock is close to its all-time high.”
What is happening with GTA 6?
Release still unclear: Recently, attention was drawn to the release of GTA 6 when a report from the website Kotaku revealed through anonymous sources that the game is still in the early stages of development.
Fans and insiders did not want to believe this. One of these insiders heard from their sources that GTA 6 is already 70% developed.
However, nothing is really clear regarding GTA 6 yet. In the meantime, fans are busy designing maps and explaining which locations they want to explore in the new installment of the Grand Theft Auto series. This graphic of a GTA 6 map is referred to by players as “the best concept I’ve ever seen”. Until the release of the game, fans keep themselves occupied with such creations.
