An industry waits for Grand Theft Auto VI to get a release date

In Take-Two’s earnings today, the massive video game publisher behind hits like the Borderlands series and Red Dead Redemption was unsurprisingly coy about Grand Theft Auto VI’s exact release date. Take-Two has resisted giving a specific date to what can likely be called the most anticipated game in the world at the moment, the sequel to Grand Theft Auto V which has sold 210 million units so far, instead only giving the vague but unmoving “Fall” timeline.

It turns out this is a bit of a problem for developers in the industry that are not Take-Two. Sending a game out near Grand Theft Auto VI, or even more perilously, against Grand Theft Auto VI, is likely a sales death sentence for any title. Market attention can sometimes be a zero-sum game and there is little point in trying to combat a title of GTAVI’s size when it has already sucked all the air out of the room. Thus, many publishers are holding their own cards close to their chest so as not to announce any dates that would just have to move to get out of developer Rockstar’s way.