The specter of a GTA 6 delay haunts the games industry: ‘Some companies are going to tank’ if they guess wrong, says analyst

The near future plans of many game studios depend on whether or not Grand Theft Auto 6 actually releases this year, and making the wrong guess could be disastrous for some of them, says Ben Porter, director of consulting at games industry intelligence firm Newzoo.

“If you’re a game company who’s holding its breath waiting for GTA 6 to get out, and then it gets delayed by three, four, five, six months, what do you do?” said Porter in an interview with PC Gamer at GDC 2025 this week. “You either have to be able to launch into that big black hole that’s been left open now, or you have to extend your run rate by an additional six months—I’m certain some companies are going to tank as a result of that, right?”