Microsoft's comments on GTA 6 release in 2024 shouldn't be taken literally

Microsoft's recent comments about Grand Theft Auto 6's release date are based on rumors, not concrete information.

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Microsoft recently made a 111-page response arguing why it should be allowed to merge with Activision. That document, which about as long as a novella by Stephen King, outlines a ton of information regarding the games industry, key metrics, and new releases. One of the games mentioned in Microsoft's response is a potential release year for Rockstar Games' massively anticipated GTA 6.

Microsoft's recent comments about Grand Theft Auto 6's release date are based on rumors, not concrete information.

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Microsoft recently made a 111-page response arguing why it should be allowed to merge with Activision. That document, which about as long as a novella by Stephen King, outlines a ton of information regarding the games industry, key metrics, and new releases. One of the games mentioned in Microsoft's response is a potential release year for Rockstar Games' massively anticipated GTA 6.

"The highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI is expected to be released in 2024," Microsoft wrote. But like everything else in this document, we have to check the sources. As it turns out, Microsoft--more specifically, Microsoft's lawyer--is directly basing this statement on a rumor post from TechRadar. Therefore it can't be taken as fact, or as something that Microsoft believes. Counsel is simply stating that the industry, analysts, and gamers believe it to be the case because of this article--not that Microsoft believes it to be the case.

Just about every website on planet earth reported on the "GTA 6 is coming in 2024," including us.

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Our predictions for GTA 6's release date were based on a significant revenue spike suggested for 2024 and 2025. Earlier this year, multiple analysts have also predicted a 2024 release for GTA 6.

Except we were one of the original websites to make an educated guess on GTA 6's release, which was based around a huge revenue forecast spike. Then in January 2022, multiple analysts predicted GTA 6 could release in 2024. These assertion from number-crunchers helped fuel the GTA 6 rumors.

If you've read these documents enough then you'll start to notice a trend. Microsoft's and Sony's counsel (the lawyer teams who write these reports) will often cite articles based on rumor, speculation, or supposition to help illustrate their point. There's lots of context missing here, but we'll do our best to clear things up.

Microsoft absolutely knows when Rockstar plans to release GTA 6. They just can't tell you because that info is protected. But what they can do is link to a publicly-available article on the internet. That way they aren't breaking any rules and all the potential "blame" lays on another website/source.

This kind of thing pops up often throughout these documents. For example, Sony gives a figure on Battlefield franchise sales that is based on a Stealth Optional article, which also includes a mixture of VGChartz data.

Sony absolutely knows how many copies that Battlefield has sold. They just don't really want to reveal that kind of sensitive information without EA's blessing. And EA probably doesn't want to be involved in this kind of platform war either.

These lawyers are quite literally Googling articles and using them as sources to reinforce their point, regardless if the info is 100% accurate. So keep that in mind when you read the documents. Unless the data comes from the companies themselves then we can't take all of these statements, and more importantly their sources, at total face value.