Take-Two chief executive Strauss Zelnick has said Grand Theft Auto VI was expensive and took a long time to make, and he refused to declare the game a success before it reaches players on November 19.
Zelnick made the comments in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, reported by GameSpot on November 5. Two weeks out from launch, his message was restraint: Rockstar has spent years and a large, undisclosed sum on the biggest game it has ever made, and the only verdict that counts now comes from players.
At a glance
What Zelnick Said About the Budget
“It was expensive and it took a long time.” That was Zelnick’s answer when the Journal asked about the cost of GTA 6, in GameSpot’s account of the interview. He gave no number, and GameSpot notes the often-quoted $1.5 billion figure is not the real cost.
Zelnick framed the spending as the price of Take-Two’s stated mission to “make the best entertainment on Earth”. “Our strategy is to be the most creative, the most innovative, and the most efficient,” he said. “That approach sometimes is, in fact, really expensive.”
The balance sheet supports it, he argued: “The good news is that we have a P&L and a balance sheet that supports that. And if we get it right — we don’t always — but if we get it right, it actually pays for itself and then some.”
He would not claim success early. “Arrogance is the enemy of continued success,” he said. Rockstar’s ambition, in his words, is to make the “most amazing entertainment experience of all time”. “They’ve done that before, and I’m hopeful that we will do that again. Like everyone else, I’m going to wait and see how it’s received. I feel really good about it, but I’ll wait and see.”
Why the Delay Was the Right Call, in His View
Zelnick called the latest delay to November 2026 “expensive and inconvenient” but the right call for the game. GTA 6 has been delayed more than once since its first reveal, and each delay added cost and time.
“There are a lot of companies who have a great mission statement, a stated strategy, and a culture, but then when push comes to shove, they do something that’s at odds with that,” he said. “My view is that culture, like character, is tested in the breach. It’s a testing moment.”
He also described the other side of the call: he once received a similar request for more time on a Take-Two project and refused it. “Actually, we’re shipping,” he said. “Thankfully, I was right, but imagine if I had been wrong?”
The Warning About Rushed Launches
Zelnick said other game companies can be too devoted to hitting deadlines, spending less time and money than a game needs and shipping it in a worse state. He named no company and no game, but pointed to a recent “high-profile” release that shipped in such a rough state it had to be pulled from sale.
GameSpot reads that as a reference to CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077, which was pulled from the PlayStation Store after its rough launch in 2020 and rebuilt through years of updates. That reading is GameSpot’s; Zelnick did not name the game.
The example cuts both ways commercially. Cyberpunk 2077 sold nearly 14 million copies in its first three weeks despite the launch, and has since passed 40 million copies, according to GameSpot. CD Projekt joint-CEO Michal Nowakowski has said launching the game in that state “was for sure wrong”.
What the Numbers Say So Far
- Sensor Tower estimates 7.71 million digital pre-orders and about $751 million in revenue before launch, with roughly three quarters of the orders on PS5. Those are third-party estimates, not Rockstar’s numbers. Full detail in our earlier report.
- The same firm’s projection puts GTA 6 at 25 million pre-purchases by launch, worth around $2 billion — enough, GameSpot notes, to cover the development cost and most of the marketing spend. That is a projection, not a confirmed figure.
- TheGamer reports GTA 6 currently holds the top three best-selling pre-order spots on the UK PlayStation Store: the Standard Edition, the Ultimate Edition and the $20 Ultimate Edition upgrade. The Standard Edition costs $79.99 and the Ultimate Edition $99.99.
What to Watch Next
Pre-load starts November 10, and physical copies reach shops from November 12. The launch itself is November 19 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
No PC version date has been announced, and there is no mobile version. Neither should be assumed to follow at launch.
The open question now is whether the finished game matches the wait and the spend. Zelnick’s own answer was to wait: he feels good about the game, but he will judge it by how players receive it.
