Grand Theft Auto 6 being delayed to 2026 is tough news for the industry overall, with a new report saying the game’s push to next year will wipe out an expected $2.7 billion in spending for 2025.
Ampere Analysis said in a report that the game’s delay erases that much revenue, which would have been derived from game and hardware sales from the global market. A previous report from a different research company said GTA 6 would sell 40 million copies and earn $3 billion in its first year alone.
Another previous report said Sony was specifically hurt by GTA 6’s delay to 2026, due to an expected uptick in game and console sales. It’s also been theorized that Sony has a deal with Rockstar for GTA 6.
GTA 6 being delayed to 2026 creates a “vacuum” for other publishers to maximize the sales potential of their games during Holiday 2025, Ampere said. The company added that Nintendo is now “better placed to capitalized” in this environment with the launch of the Switch 2 and its marquee games like Mario Kart World.
Like the game’s release date, revenue deriving from GTA 6 is not canceled, but delayed. GTA 6 is expected to be a massive success whenever it’s released. The game was delayed due in part to Rockstar’s teams needing more time to polish the game and get it ready for launch.
Even with GTA 6’s delay, Ampere’s report said the total global video game industry is expected to reach $201.3 billion in 2025, which would be up from the all-time annual record of $199.4 billion in 2024. This is a growth of about 1%, but Ampere said 2026 should see an annual growth rate of 2.2% thanks in part to GTA 6.
Ampere’s Piers Harding-Rolls said the video game industry’s lack of a new transformative technology or updated monetization and distribution models means game companies are “looking for pockets of growth to exploit and to build content more efficiently and at lower cost.”
As for the Switch 2, it’s said to be the “most important product launch” of all time in gaming, with Nintendo predicting it will sell millions of systems and games. The system launches on June 5.
