GTA 6 Pre-Orders Skew Ultimate, Zelnick Tells CNBC

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick told CNBC's Squawk Box on Monday, August 10, 2026 that early Grand Theft Auto VI pre-orders are leaning toward the pricier $99.99 Ultimate Edition rather than the $79.99 Standard Edition. Asked directly which edition buyers were choosing, Zelnick said: "it is skewing more to the [Ultimate] Edition, but that might be a reflection, again, of the fact that the most avid consumers are the ones who are pre-ordering."

It's a new data point on top of what Zelnick already told investors on Take-Two's August 7 earnings call, where he called overall pre-order demand — open since June 25 — "unprecedented and astonishing" without giving hard numbers. This time he added the edition-level breakdown, while repeating the same caution he gave on the earnings call: the current buyers may simply be the most dedicated fans buying first, so the skew toward Ultimate "might be" front-loaded rather than representative of how the broader audience will eventually buy. He said Take-Two still can't tell whether pre-order strength reflects demand "pulled forward" by early hype or a durable trend.

Zelnick also defended the $79.99 Standard price itself, telling CNBC that Take-Two and Rockstar deliberately avoided pricing higher, aiming instead to "deliver way more value to the consumer" than the price charged — echoing his earnings-call comparison of GTA 5's 230 million lifetime units as evidence the value-for-money approach works over time.

Nothing here changes the game: GTA 6 remains confirmed for November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with no new price or edition announced. For the full edition comparison — what the $20 gap between Standard and Ultimate actually buys — see the price and editions guide; for the full earnings-call context, see Take-Two's "unprecedented" pre-order comments.

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Published 2026-08-12

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