For months the debate over GTA 6's price has raged on. Whenever the price for the $100 Ultimate Edition is brought up, it's met with hundreds of people moaning about how they will not be spending that much on the game
but the reality is far more interesting.
The data don't lie
Thanks to an analysis over at Tweaktown (via Kotaku) of various PlayStation Store sales charts, it's revealed that the highest pre-ordered title in nine different regions including the US, UK, Canada and France is in fact GTA 6's $100 Ultimate Edition. The cheapest $80 edition of the game barely registers on the charts in these regions.
So in short, this is proof that the cheapest version of the game isn't the most popular.
This isn't an isolated case
This isn't some Rockstar specific thing either as Marvel's Wolverine is seeing similar trends, although GTA 6's $100 edition is outselling every other $80 edition by a healthy margin, and Halo's $90 edition is selling better on PS5 than the $60 edition. Niko Partners director Daniel Ahmad weighed in on the matter via tweet, saying how the growth of the gaming industry now focuses on getting existing customers to spend more, rather than trying to get new ones as is the case with most other industries.
A big factor in this specific situation is likely to be the fact that GTA 6 is most likely digitally exclusive. There is no $60 disc version of the game to entice those cheap buyers in the way the $60 disc version of the next Call of Duty would. Having just two options, $80 and $100, the extra $20 seems less daunting than it would if there was a $60 option next to it.
The same pattern repeats itself
All throughout the online discussion around games this pattern emerges with depressing regularity, whenever the price of games, or any other purchase is brought up, the loudest voices are always the ones complaining about it, while the actions of those same people usually give the opposite message. Whether it be bundles, expansions, microtransactions, loot boxes or any other monetization method, it's always the same frustrating song and dance.
Those who complain the loudest about the $100 price tag for GTA 6 are most likely the exact same people who have already pre-ordered the $100 edition. Not to put too fine a point on it but it's the equivalent to a movie critic calling out a film for being two hours long while the entire theater full of people are watching it.
With GTA 6's release date fast approaching (November 19, 2026), we can stop relying on proxies and eventually see what the real figures say ourselves, but until then, it seems like Take Two's gamble has paid off.