The whole game industry is waiting for the launch of GTA 6, with some analysts hoping it'll put the gaming market "back on a growth trajectory." At the same time, a whole lot of developers are eyeing the game's as-yet-unconfirmed launch date because they don't want to get lost in Rockstar's shadow. One of the key figures in PlayStation's indie outreach efforts reckons that GTA 6 could help, not hinder, the potential of smaller games.
"[GTA 6 is] going to be the best, awesome, giant game for the year, for sure," according to PlayStation's Greg Rice, who also serves as lead curator for Day of the Devs, speaking to 12DOVE at the Game Developers Conference. "I hear a lot of the opposite of devs, worried about it sucking all the space out. 'I don't want to launch during GTA week or even month, because that's all anyone's gonna be playing.'"
Rice believes it's "100% true" that Rockstar's game will "do gangbusters and sell millions of copies," and he's certainly not alone in that belief. "But I think the industry is matured enough that there's space for that and for other things as well. It's gonna be a combination of 'there will be games that will be successful around GTA time because they're totally different,' but it'll also bring a lot more people back into the ecosystem."
- Take-Two boss is "not concerned" about falling console sales because major 2025 games like GTA 6 will help convince more people to buy a PS5 or Xbox Series X
- GTA 6 will double GTA 5 and make $3.2 billion in its first year, analysts say – "The pent-up demand is greater than anything we’ve seen before”
The theory that GTA 6 will help convince people to finally invest in a current-gen console is also one that's been espoused by folks like Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, and those players might want to play games besides GTA once they've wrung all the content out of it.
"I'm sure there's lots of gamers that [GTA 6 will be] the only thing they play," Rice admits, but "it'll be the opportunity to get in on the new console generation and see what else is out there. So it's definitely gonna be a big economic boost for the games industry, and will be a multiple billion dollar title, but I don't think that it's at competition with [indie games]."
Here are the new games for 2025 and beyond that need to be on your radar.
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