We have an interesting new report on RockstarIntel that points to how much the video game industry pins their hopes on Grand Theft Auto 6.
Analytics data from Ampere reveal that most Grand Theft Auto V players are still on PlayStation 4. This means most of the money Rockstar makes on a daily basis is actually also passing through the last generation console. Many analysts seem to be hoping or expecting those players to move over to new consoles when Grand Theft Auto 6 finally releases.
We wanted to make more sense of this information ourselves, so we looked up the Ampere report as well. Ampere’s Pierre Harding-Rolls was helpful in providing more context to their data. He wrote this on a blog post on their website:
“According to Ampere Games – Analytics data, GTA V together with GTA Online regularly engages over 20m players every month across PlayStation, Xbox and Steam platforms – with 25m in Jun-24 following the release of the latest update Bottom Dollar Bounties.
The consistency of its performance reflects Rockstar’s successful transition of the franchise to a live-service experience alongside recurring in-game monetization. PS4 remains the most active platform by some distance, with millions also playing on Xbox One and Steam.”
It’s somewhat strange that Harding-Rolls seemingly passes over PlayStation 5 player estimates there. But if we intuit from prior reports that half of PlayStation owners have PlayStation 5 consoles now, we maybe can assume there are significant player numbers there. But the question does arise if the PlayStation 4 players also trail PlayStation 5 players by some distance.
The overall picture of the industry now certainly looks less rosy than it did even five years ago. We seem to still be seeing the consequences of the pandemic continue to reverberate to this day, with most gamers playing the same game from five to six years ago, and significant numbers of console players still on PlayStation 4, and possibly Xbox One.
Will Grand Theft Auto V players move to PlayStation 5 for Grand Theft Auto 6? While a lot of analysts want to believe so, this is definitely not guaranteed. While it seems that analysts expect a windfall from its release as a result, there is definitely risk in expecting a single game, even one that’s been ballyhooed as the biggest release in video game history, to rescue the industry. What if Grand Theft Auto 6 doesn’t do that at all?
This is perhaps the most concerning point in all of this, because if major players in the industry invest with that expectation, and it doesn’t happen, it will be another faltering that will harm the industry further. And we could see even more game developers laid off and studios fired, from hasty decisions made on uncertain bets.
But we’d like to believe that there’s plenty of money in the industry right now, and it isn’t reliant on a single platform or title. If it isn’t Grand Theft Auto 6, maybe the Switch 2, or the long awaited first party games from Sony and Microsoft, or even the new players in China and Korea, can create a new boom period for video games in 2025.
