GTA 6 will present an interesting challenge for Rockstar Games. Why that is and more data on GTA Online’s player count has been revealed. All this comes from an analytics firm Ampere Analysis who recently shared a detailed dive into what’s next for GTA Online and what Rockstar Games will have to navigate with GTA VI.
As reported by Gamesindustry.biz, console gamers have not fully switched to the current generation of consoles. Not too long ago Sony told us about half of all PlayStation users are still on PS4 and haven’t upgraded to PS5.
Many people believe that GTA VI will be the catalyst that converts people to current gen, but some will stay on PS4 and continue to play GTA Online. In fact, GTA VI’s expected record launch has a lot riding on it. Some within the gaming industry believe this is the ticket out of stagnation and decline in gaming finances. Ubisoft’s CEO just this month told investors that GTA usually helps the company sell more copies of its games like Assassin’s Creed.
GTA Online crazy numbers
According to Ampere‘s Games Research Piers Harding-Rolls, GTA V/GTA Online routinely hits over 20 million users every month when you combine PlayStation, Xbox and PC. For example, in both April and May, GTA Online had just under 21 million users.
Then after the release of Bottom Dollar Bounties, the game had 25.11 million active players in June. The highest player count in a month over the past 12 months was in December. This was down to the release of The Chop Shop DLC and hype for GTA VI after its first trailer.
GTA V was the most downloaded PS5 game in June according to Sony. It was also one of the most downloaded PS4 games. For more details on June’s charts, check out our roundup here.
Data firm Ampere also states that the PS4 “remains the most active platform by some distance” over PS5, PC, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One. This might surprise people because so many PS5s have now been sold in almost 4 years after launch. Apart from that, GTA RP with the PC version is extremely successful in social media and content creation. Probably a lot more people enjoy watching GTA RP than playing the game.
GTA 6 Online
While many more players will upgrade their consoles before the release of GTA VI, Ampere Analysis “expects that Rockstar will continue to operate GTA Online for the foreseeable future, but this will mean maintaining multiple communities as the user base is divided after the launch of GTA VI.” That’s assuming a new GTA Online comes with GTA VI.
From the launch, it is likely that today’s GTA Online will be deprioritized progressively as the resource focus shifts to GTA VI Onlinebut while both games are running Take-Two will look to maintain a consistent revenue stream from recurring in-game and premium subscription spend across both experiences.
Piers Harding-Rolls, Ampere Analysis
We haven’t seen such a challenge undertaken by Rockstar Games before. GTA IV’s online wasn’t quite an ecosystem like GTA Online nor did it have as many players. Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Online were also similar in that sense as well.
The GTA community has a lot of questions like “Will we have to start over?”, “Can we bring our character to Vice City?” regarding the next version of GTA Online. It will be very, very interesting how Rockstar Games handles the transition from GTA Online to GTA VI’s Online mode.
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