GTA 5 Will Be Out Before March 2013, Says Industry Analyst

Michael Pachter isn’t always right, but when he’s right, he’s spot on. Basing his speculation on the recent GameInformer announcement that GTA 5 would appear on the cover of next month’s issue, the games industry analyst said today that GTA 5’s release date “has to be before March 31.” 

“Every GTA, except for one, has launched in October,” said Pachter in an interview with NowGamer. “I actually think the Rockstar guys would have preferred to launch [GTA 5] this October. I don’t know that they are going to try and get in the way of BioShock Infinite, which is a February launch, Rockstar probably aren’t even aware BioShock is coming out, nor do they care. Take Two is on the hook to deliver over a billion dollars in revenue.”

“Their fiscal year, ends March 31, so they pretty much have to bring the game out by March 31,” he said. “I would say a March launch is more likely than May and knowing the Rockstar guys, I wouldn’t rule out a December [2012] launch. You just don’t know with these guys, they could announce next week that GTA is coming out December 20, I think it would be stupid, but they could do it.”

As Pachter notes, Rockstar has no discernible pattern when it comes to Grand Theft Auto's release dates. Grand Theft Auto 3, which was on the PS2, was released in October; while Grand Theft Auto 4 was released in April of 2008.

“With GTA, I honestly think the Rockstar guys could bring it out before Christmas if they wanted to and they could announce next week that it’s coming out December 9, and then the Game Informer cover would get a lot of publicity, but my guess is that it’s coming out March. That’s probably an accurate release date and that gives them four full months to promote it.”

Assuming the game isn’t released in December, then there’s a good chance it’ll be out a few months later.  When do you think Grand Theft Auto 5 will be available? Will it even make it out this generation or is it being prepped as a next-gen release game?