The CEO of Take-Two Interactive has denied ongoing rumors that Grand Theft Auto 6 will be a digital-only release upon its initial launch.
This comes from Variety, which spoke to CEO Strauss Zelnick today ahead of the company’s Q3 2026 earnings release. When asked if subsidiary Rockstar would delay the release of physical copies of GTA 6 until 2027 to avoid leaks, he replied, “That’s not the plan.”
Rumors of such a physical delay emerged late last month, when an alleged insider industry source shared that Take-Two had no plans for a physical edition of the game at release due to concerns about physical copies falling into hands early and leaking online.
Notably, the report suggests that physical copies could be delayed into 2027, or delayed just a few weeks, which would make Zelnick’s answer somewhat unclear. IGN reached out to Take-Two to get more clarity on what his statement meant, and was informed that Zelnick’s statement was denying any delay plan at all, not just a move to 2027 specifically.
GTA 6 is still set for release on November 18, 2026, a date that Zelnick reaffirmed confidently to us today, alongside plans for Rockstar to spin up its marketing machine this summer. The game has already suffered from multiple leaks, both of development footage and of its first trailer, alongside a number of AI-generated fake leaks. We also spoke to Zelnick today about Google Genie ahead of the company’s Q3 earnings report, in which Take-Two announced it had brought in net bookings of $1.76 billion for the quarter, and that it’s raising its expectations for the year to have net bookings between $6.65 billion to $6.7 billion.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
