GTA 6 and the PlayStation 4 problem

The phrase that gets thrown around the games industry a lot right now is 'Survive until 2025'.

The hope, or even the expectation, is that next year will see the games business bounce back after two years of faltering sales and mass redundancies.

There are a few reasons for this expectation. First, there's the belief that we'll see continued economic recovery and falling inflation rates, which should result in increased consumer spending and investment. Second, the launch of a new Nintendo console should spark increased interest and sales of new games.

And third… Grand Theft Auto 6.

Make no mistake, the next GTA will be significant milestone for video games. It should, all going well, prove to be the biggest entertainment launch of all time. It'll shine a spotlight on the industry (for good or bad), it'll drive sales at retail, boost traffic for the games media and help shift hardware, too.

It won’t benefit everyone, of course. For games publishers and developers who aren't called Rockstar, GTA 6 isn't exactly going to help them. In fact, any game that dares to release within the six-week blast radius of Grand Theft Auto does so at its own risk. Meanwhile, live service games should be braced for a sharp drop in average playtime.

Yet one thing that some in the industry are hoping for with GTA 6 is that it will help overcome 'the PS4 problem.'

We've spoken a lot about the games console business being in decline, pointing to the slightly slower pace of console sales this generation compared with the previous one. Yet things are rosier, especially for PlayStation, when we start considering other metrics.

"[We expect] Rockstar to continue operating GTA Online for the foreseeable future, but the user base [will be] split following the launch of GTA 6. Rockstar has never faced this sort of transitional challenge"

Piers Harding-Rolls, Ampere Analysis

For instance, revenue is significantly up for PS5 compared with PS4. But what's more, in terms of overall engaged users, the numbers are looking healthy… it's just that so many of those engaged users are still playing on PS4.

Whether this is a problem or not is subjective. Back in May, Sony revealed that 50% of its audience is still gaming on its older machine, even as we approach the fourth anniversary of the PS5 launch. It's not unusual for older generation machines to continue for years after their replacements have arrived, but things are more significant this time in part because of the popularity of live service titles.

Newzoo's latest playtime chart shows that the most played PlayStation games over the past two months have been Fortnite, Call of Duty, EA Sports FC 24, GTA 5, Roblox, Minecraft, Rocket League, XDefiant, Rainbow Six: Siege and NBA 2K24.

Only one of those games, Ubisoft's XDefiant (which was released in May), isn't on PS4. Minecraft is only just about to get a native PS5 version (PS5 players have only been able to download the PS4 version so far). Meanwhile, market analysts Ampere says that out of the 20 million+ active users of GTA Online, the most active platform for the game "by some distance" is PS4.

In other words, almost all the biggest games on PlayStation right now run on PS4 (and run well), and that reduces the need from a consumer point-of-view to upgrade their hardware, particularly during times of economic instability and high cost-of-living.

Obviously, it also presents an opportunity. PlayStation remains bullish that PS5 will be a bigger platform than PS4 because it knows that, at some point, much of that PS4 base will want to upgrade, especially as their hardware starts to age, slowdown or fail. Of course, Sony will need to be cautious that these gamers remain on PlayStation, especially with Xbox improving its release slate, Nintendo debuting new hardware, PC gaming continuing to perform strongly, and even mobile and tablets showcasing their high-end gaming potential. But, ultimately, they're PlayStation customers currently, so it's Sony's fanbase to lose.

This is where I feel Grand Theft Auto could play an important role for all games companies. Right now, developers are caught between pushing forward with the latest hardware and maintaining support for the old one. And indeed, this is something Rockstar is going to have to contend with.

"By the time [GTA 6] launches more GTA Online gamers will have transitioned to the latest consoles," says Ampere's lead games analyst Piers Harding-Rolls. "Yet there is likely to still be a noteworthy share of players across the older devices and on PC. As such, Ampere expects Rockstar to continue operating GTA Online for the foreseeable future, but this will mean maintaining multiple communities as the user base is split following the launch of GTA 6.

"Rockstar has never previously been faced with this sort of transitional challenge, although parent company Take-Two more broadly has deep expertise across its live service sports franchises, which regularly shift audiences to new annual releases. The ongoing commercial importance of the GTA franchise leaves very little room for error in transitioning and supporting its loyal audience as the new game launches."

But if there is one game that could trigger players to upgrade, it is Grand Theft Auto. And if Sony and Microsoft have plans to release upgraded and handheld versions of their latest machines, as reports suggest, then 2025 could prove to be a very significant year for the future of the games console, even before factoring in Nintendo.

Of course, the situation poses a broader question… what might PlayStation 6 look like? In many ways, Xbox Series S and X were continuations of Xbox One. Faster, more powerful, but with the same interface, same controllers, and all its first-party games were cross-generational. By contrast, Sony exclaimed it 'believed in generations', and presented PS5 with a new UI, a new controller, new accessories and (at least some) PS5-only games.

With gamers taking five years (or longer) to transition from one generation to the next, and with AAA games taking four or five years to build, does the seven-year generational cycle still work today? Unless Sony's engineers and hardware teams can create a product that offers a significant change in how games look and play, I'm not convinced it does.

That's tomorrow's problem to solve. For now, the opportunity for PlayStation is getting those remaining fans to put down their DualShocks and pick up a DualSense instead. It will take something special to do that, and all eyes are on Grand Theft Auto 6.