Games Inbox: Will there be another GTA 6 delay?

The Tuesday letters page is worried about the state of Western RPG developers, as readers offer further advice on cheap Game Pass Ultimate.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Never say never
So the word is that GTA 6 is finished and they’re just tidying it up and polishing it. That sounds like no more delays but I’m not so sure. Everybody claims they ‘knew’ there was going to be a delay this time but I don’t remember too many predictions of that, just that it could happen.

Rockstar Games is apparently trying to avoid another Cyberpunk 2077 situation but if you want to do that you don’t set a date and say you have to be finished by then, you just keep going until the job is done.

So, I wouldn’t say there’s no guarantee of another delay at all. Even if the next one is only a few weeks, instead of a few months, I won’t count anything until it’s downloading on my hard drive. A six months delay is a long time, so Rockstar badly misjudged things this time. That makes me think nothing is certain.
Gannet

Difficult decisions
I can’t say Xbox’s future plans are the first thing I thought of when the GTA 6 delay was announced but it’s true: they are going to get screwed over more than most. Not anyone’s fault but very bad timing from their point of view. Sony are going to go up against GTA 6 with Wolverine, but I imagine they’ll go for a late September/early October release and try and avoid it that way.

The question is whether Microsoft are flexible enough to do that. You’ve also got to question whether they’re sensible enough to understand they have to avoid GTA 6. One of Microsoft’s biggest problems with Xbox has been unearned arrogance and I wouldn’t put it past them to think they could get away with opposing GTA 6, especially if they think they’re the only ones doing it.

But I guess we won’t know until nearer the time, but I can say I wouldn’t want to be the one that sets their schedules next year. Or for any publisher that was planning on releasing anything this time next year.
Dose

Galaxy of questions
Nintendo has done some weird things in their time, but I don’t understand anything to do with their Mario plans at the moment, including the new movie. So it’s called Super Mario Galaxy but it’s got references to Sunshine and Odyssey in it at as well? Did they really need to jump so far ahead? I just don’t get it.

And while hardcore fans know that Galaxy was great wasn’t it not actually that successful? So it’s not like they’re doing this because it’s a cheap cash grab. But fans would love a third game, and presumably so would people who end up liking the movie, but where is it? Even if it comes out later what was the point of that? Wouldn’t it have been better to do that first and then Donkey Kong Bananza, since it wouldn’t be tying in with anything.

I get it, it’s Nintendo, but this just seems like random decision making even by their standards.
Lotso

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Ooh, banana!
Regarding the Reader’s Feature on video game music, I had a somewhat unfortunate incident many years ago, when Keane’s Under the Iron Sea album was released I played it on repeat constantly (having been a massive fan of Hopes and Fears). I was replaying Final Fantasy 9 at the same time and ever since then I can’t play the game or listen to the album without getting nostalgic for the other! (It’s also always felt a little ironic, as one of the songs from the album is Frog Prince, and Final Fantasy 9 has you meet a frog king).

Also, I remember hearing Blur Song 2 for the first time on a FIFA game (can’t remember which) which started my obsession with Blur! Maybe not the standout track for that game but the one I’ll always remember when playing FIFA.

Anyway, I recently got Donkey Kong Bananza for £35, thanks to a handy Very voucher my mum received. Gotta say I’m having an absolute blast with it, but the banana sound effect may stay with me forever.

Keep well everyone.
Solabound

Currency conversion
RE: Goldnelay and Game Pass Essential to Premium conversion. This official Xbox support page details the conversion rates. The TD;LR is it’s 3:2 for Essential to Premium, with a limit of 13 months. CDKeys, now Loaded, is still the cheapest for Game Pass codes that I’ve seen.

I was going to say don’t make my mistake and buy Essential and try to apply it when you already have Premium or Ultimate, as for me it just said it couldn’t apply the code. So I gave the code away and as I was thanked a few days later I’m assuming the code worked for them. But according to the page it should of extended my Ultimate subscription. Although not at a bonus conversion rate, so in the end more expensive than buying a direct code off CDKeys for the same converted Ultimate duration.
Simundo

Theoretical saving
After much research, including chatting to Xbox support and the Underbox, I believe the cheapest way to buy Game Pass Ultimate at the moment in the UK is 3 x Essential codes from Loaded, which comes to £104.97, and one month Ultimate code from ShopTo at £11.85.

Which will give 15 months Ultimate at £7.87 a month. Codes must be EU or UK and for Xbox One or Series X/S.

You must wait until your current Game Pass subscription has run out. Then Essential codes must be inputted first before the Ultimate code.

Now, I haven’t actually proved this works yet. I have bought the codes but they won’t be used till 11th December, but it has always worked previously in this way and Xbox support did say do it this way.

(Loaded added 20% on to the price when I was not logged in, so make sure you’re logged in to your Loaded account when buying the codes.)
Goldenlay

Financial Effect
As awful as the EA acquisition probably is in general, I do hope that they last long enough to finish work on the new Mass Effect, so it can be a hit. Someone suggested that their new owners might be trying to prove they’re still committed at first, and maybe willing to spend more money than they would normally, so I hope that’s true and the work can be completed.

I think it goes without saying that if the new Mass Effect is a flop, then that’s it for BioWare. The problem is even getting the game finished, so we can find out if it’s a hit or not. I really don’t know what to expect from the game, not when playing things safe is the obvious route to go, but I don’t even know what that means for Mass Effect, when it hasn’t had a hit for so long.
Tommy

Time travel
I used to love Skyrim but I really struggle to come up with excuses for what Bethesda has become over the last decade or so. There is no way on earth that we should still be three years or more away from The Elder Scrolls 6 and even further for Fallout 5. It just doesn’t make any sense.

If I was Todd Howard, I’d be worried about Microsoft looking my way when they start making the cuts they obviously are going to. I’m sure he’ll get a golden handshake, but I don’t see how you can describe the slowness and questionable quality of Bethesda in the last 10 years as anything but his fault. I mean, he’s the guy in charge, right?

They didn’t even make the Oblivion remaster (which is still a broken mess, I should say) so they haven’t even got that excuse. Back in 2011 Bethesda were one of the absolutely most respected developers in the world. If you’d gone back in time and told people how little they’ve accomplished from then till now I think it would blow their minds.

Mind you, you’d probably say the same thing of BioWare and they’re in an even worse position nowadays. All these big Western role-player devs I think didn’t really scale up well to modern game development. It’s actually a question for me whether Rockstar will. I think we can take it from all the delays for GTA 6 that it hasn’t been easy.
Combo

Inbox also-rans
I wouldn’t be surprised if GTA 6 was finished in time for its release date, this time last year. It’s not hard to imagine the polishing and bug fixing is taking over a year, and that’s what all the delays have been for.
Kompf

This Japanese State of Play (that isn’t all Japanese) is really weird. Have they done that sort of thing before? I don’t remember it.
Landis

GC: They’ve had State of Plays that focus on Japanese games before but not one like this where the whole thing is actually in Japanese, with subtitles.

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