Whelp, GTA 6 Is Definitely Going To Be At Least $80 Now

Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to launch later this year. Maybe in October? Regardless of when it arrives, it seems very likely now—after Nintendo and Microsoft have both announced $80 games—that the open-world sequel will cost at least $80 as well, if not more.

In April, Nintendo revealed that it was going to charge $80 for Switch 2 launch game Mario Kart World. This is the first time the Mario maker has crossed the $70 threshold and it marked one of the first examples of a major publisher charging $80 for a single video game. People didn’t react well to this price increase. And then earlier today, Microsoft announced that it was raising prices across the board on consoles, controllers, and first-party games. Come this holiday season, first-party Xbox games will cost $80.

Much of this is likely due to President Trump’s rollercoaster tariffs against nearly every nation on the planet, something Nintendo confirmed was a factor and which Microsoft has implied in the act of increasing U.S. prices far more than it’s raising UK prices. And while Sony is holding out for now on $80 games, the company has already raised prices on its PlayStation consoles multiple times this generation even before Trump’s tariffs, so I expect it to increase prices on games and devices sooner than later as well.

All of this works out pretty well for Take-Two and Rockstar Games, as both companies were likely planning to slap (at least) an $80 price tag on Grand Theft Auto 6.

Previously, before all this news, I could imagine Rockstar being a bit nervous to be the first major company to pull the trigger on selling a game for $80. (To note: As of May 1, Rockstar has yet to officially announce a price. This is all speculation.) They may have anticipated a lot of backlash to such a move. A lot of negative headlines. It would have been painful, even if in the end millions would still have forked over $80 for what is likely to be one of the biggest video games ever made.

But now, well, damn, things are working out pretty well for Rockstar Games. When they eventually announce a release date and reveal GTA 6 will cost $80, the world will have already gone through the sticker shock and Rockstar won’t have to deal with nearly as much backlash.

And yes, I’m pretty dang sure Rockstar is going to charge $80 for Grand Theft Auto 6. You can argue all day that, well, Take-Two and Rockstar might want to go with a lower price to saturate the market or build up an audience that will pump money into GTA 6‘s online mode. But this is GTA 6. Rockstar could charge $300 a copy and still sell a few million on launch day. The hype and demand for this game is unreal. There was no way this thing, which has been in development for a long time and has a huge budget, was going to cost just $60.

I mean, look at it this way: Do you really think Rockstar and Take-Two are going to be let Nintendo get away with charging $80 for the next Mario Kart game, while not doing the same for the next Grant Theft Auto sequel? No way. The real question now is whether Rockstar and Take-Two think they can charge $90 or even $100 for the game. Before everyone began slapping $80 price tags on video games this month, I’d probably have said that’s too much. However, these days, it’s looking more and more plausible.

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