The upcoming launch of GTA 6 could potentially set players back around $80, a speculation emerging from the Xbox website hinting at impending price hikes for new first-party games starting this holiday season. Despite Rockstar’s ownership by Take-Two Interactive and not Microsoft, this shift signifies a broader trend in the gaming industry.

Shuhei Yoshida, notable industry veteran and former head of PlayStation, suggests that this change is long overdue. “It was going to happen sooner or later,” he commented, highlighting the unavoidable nature of rising development costs and the inflation affecting the industry.

He stated, “We live in contrasting times, where inflation is real and significant, but people expect games that are ever more ambitious and therefore expensive to develop to cost the same. It’s an impossible equation.”

Yoshida also noted the trend of diversifying revenue through remakes and remasters, a strategy that helps fund the exponential growth of new projects. As GTA 6 approaches its release, discussions regarding its pricing will likely become more prevalent as developers balance production costs against consumer expectations.