Gamers may be furious about Rockstar Games’ move away from physical discs, but that anger doesn’t seem to be stopping the company from raking in all the cash. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has now confirmed that GTA 6‘s Ultimate Edition is actually outselling the cheaper Standard Edition. This was revealed during a recent CNBC Squawk Box interview.
Zelnick was asked whether customers were preordering the $99.99 Ultimate Edition or the $79.99 Standard Edition. His answer was simple, “Both.” However, when asked whether the split was equal, Zelnick revealed something rather eyebrow-raising.
“Actually, it is skewing more to the premium edition,” Zelnick said. “But that might be a reflection, again, of the fact that the most avid consumers are the ones who are preordering.”
Of course, if you’ve read our GTA 6 coverage, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise. Previously, we covered how GTA 6‘s Ultimate Edition preorders are topping the PlayStation Network chart across 49 countries, including the US and Japan. The $99 game is shown beating FC 26, Minecraft, and even free-to-play juggernauts like Roblox and Fortnite on Sony’s storefront.
That makes the whole situation rather amusing considering the backlash surrounding the GTA 6 launch. First, Rockstar announced that GTA 6 is basically locking basic content like in-game stores behind the Ultimate Edition paywall. The developer also confirmed that physical copies won’t include a disc, instead coming with only a download code. Then Zelnick’s ‘who cares’ comment on the issue and Sony’s decision to stop disc production helped fuel calls for a boycott from gamers frustrated with the industry’s digital-first approach.
But at the end of the day, it appears that the ‘most avid’ GTA 6 fans Zelnick talked about are the majority. As plenty are still unable to resist this decade’s FOMO and are choosing the $100 option.
Take-Two also doesn’t seem to be interested in using holiday sales to boost those numbers. Zelnick said the company has set the pricing, but storefronts ‘can do what they wish’ about the price — if they want to reduce their profit margins. “We don’t have any ability to control that,” he said. Speaking of pricing, he also suggested the company could have charged considerably more for GTA 6 if it wanted to.
“I think most people felt that if we wanted to exert it, we had a great deal of pricing power,” Zelnick added, although stressing that the company prioritized value over price.
“Our job, though, as we see it, is to deliver always way more value to the consumer than what we charge. We want people to be thrilled. And we would never want people to feel like, ‘This is out of my range.'”
Zelnick’s comments suggest Take-Two is confident players see enough value in GTA 6 to justify the higher price, even as debate over the game’s premium editions and digital-first approach continues online. Early preorder trends appear to support that view, with the Ultimate Edition currently attracting the series’ most dedicated fans.
Whether driven by collector appeal or early-adopter enthusiasm, the numbers suggest many fans are willing to pay extra for GTA 6. If that trend continues, Rockstar’s premium pricing strategy may prove even more successful than expected.
