Why GTA 6 delay creates a massive problem for Xbox and Call Of Duty

Christmas 2026 has become a nightmare for other games publishers, now that the new GTA 6 release date is set to dominate the season.

It is not an over exaggeration to say GTA 6 is the most anticipated video game of all time. What other game can announce a release date and have publishers scrambling to avoid launching their games around the same time?

Sure, it happened with Hollow Knight: Silksong, but that was still limited to the indie space. Everybody knows what GTA 6 is and its release is expected to be beyond massive, not just for the games industry but across all of entertainment.

However, plans for its launch keep changing. Initially billed for an autumn 2025 release, GTA 6 was pushed to May 26, 2026 and now it’s been delayed again to November 19, 2026.

With GTA 6 now set to dominate next year’s Christmas period, we have to ask how other developers and publishers will respond to a delay that stands to be incredibly disruptive to their own plans.

What video games will launch in May 2026 instead of GTA 6?

Let’s start with that now open release window of May 2026. Most companies were looking to avoid that entire month like the plague, lest any game they launch be completely overshadowed by GTA 6.

While not every other video game is targeting the same audience as GTA 6, and isn’t necessarily at risk of losing customers to it, Rockstar Games’ newest release is a cultural phenomenon and will completely dominate the conversation in gaming, no matter how dissimilar other titles might be.

Not only will people be spending all their time and money on GTA 6 but all press and influential coverage will be focused almost exclusively on the game.

Charlotte Willis, PR account director at Diva Agency, sums it up well in her statement to GamesIndustry.biz: ‘A client with a deep Japanese role-playing game or a cosy farming sim has a fundamentally different audience to GTA 6, so their core fans will still be there for them, and their sales may not be totally impacted.

‘However, we have to be realistic about press and creator priorities. The challenge for those games is instead the battle for ‘share of voice.’ GTA 6 will consume the majority of the oxygen in the room during Q4 2026.’

Fortunately, Q2, which covers April to June, is now open season for any and all publishers. So don’t be surprised if there’s a sudden influx of concrete April to May release dates, both for announced and unannounced games.

As Willis puts it, ‘That Q2 window Rockstar just vacated has suddenly become the most valuable real estate of the year. This delay hasn’t just created a challenge, it’s also created a massive new opportunity for the right games to step in and own the first half of 2026 – if they’re ready to release then, that is.’

What video games will change their release dates because of GTA 6?

There could also be adjustments to any games scheduled for Q1. January to March next year is fairly busy, with a number of important releases scheduled; namely Resident Evil Requiem from Capcom, the new James Bond game 007 First Light, and Sony’s next PlayStation 5 exclusive Saros.

If publishers had previously given themselves a hard limit, of no later than April 2026, that restriction no longer applies. So these or other titles may consider taking advantage of GTA 6’s absence.

There’s nothing to indicate any of these games need any extra time, but it’s surely no coincidence that none of them were due any later than March. They may also simply want to stretch their legs and ensure as much space between each other, since it never benefits anyone to have too many big name games coming out at the same time.

What other video games will launch at Christmas 2026 alongside GTA 6?

The most pressing question is what’s going to happen to all the big games that were planning to launch during the pre-Christmas 2026 period, now that GTA 6 is scheduled for November.

As it stands, GTA 6 is the only Q4 2026 game with a firm release date, but it’s the biggest release period of the year and yet suddenly it’s a period other publishers will want to steer well clear of.

With GTA 6 threatening to dominate the market and eat into their sales, will publishers be forced to push their games back, potentially into early 2027? Or will they release them unusually early, in September and October, and hope that’s enough?

So far, the only other confirmed major release that’s aiming for that Q4 window is Insomniac’s Wolverine, which has been a long-awaited PlayStation 5 exclusive and stars one of the most popular comic book superheroes of all time. That’s the kind of game Sony will want out before Christmas, since it should also help push new console sales.

Both Wolverine and GTA 6, however, are targeting the same demographic of older gamers thanks to their mature content, so there’s bound to be a sizable number of customers that will choose one over the other.

Sony and Insomniac are sticking to their guns at the moment, with a recent call for wishlists stressing that Wolverine is coming out in autumn 2026. However, if Wolverine manages to launch in September (fellow Sony exclusive Ghost Of Yōtei launched in early October this year), that would give it a couple of months to run unopposed before GTA 6 comes along.

But what about Call Of Duty? New entries in the series have been coming out annually in October or November for over a decade (this year’s Black Ops 7’s is out on November 14), but will GTA 6 force Activision to make an exception for 2026?

As massive as Call Of Duty is, it’s still a minnow compared to GTA 5. Although thanks to its yearly release schedule Call Of Duty has sold more units overall, at over 500 million compared to the GTA franchise’s 460 million, according to publisher Take-Two Interactive.

However, GTA 5 is the best-selling traditional video game of all time, having pushed more than 220 million units since its 2013 launch. The best-selling Call Of Duty game – 2015’s Black Ops 3 – is nowhere close to that, at 43 million units sold.

Rumours suggest next year’s Call Of Duty is another Modern Warfare sequel, but given Black Ops 7 has already seen less anticipation than normal Activision, and new owners Microsoft, will definitely not want to skip a year.

GTA 6 is all but assured to have its own online multiplayer, thanks to the continued success of GTA Online, which will make it a direct rival to Call Of Duty – in terms of demographics, if not gameplay.

Another major franchise that traditionally releases new entries in the autumn is Pokémon. While there’s no official information, it’s very likely the next mainline entry – Generation X – will be a late 2026 launch.

While Pokémon Legends: Z-A only just came out, traditional entries, that kick-off the next generation of the franchise, tend to launch every three or four years. And since Generation IX, Pokémon Scarlet & Violet, was in 2023, Generation X is expected to debut in 2026. Especially since that year also marks Pokémon’s 30th anniversary.

Nintendo is rarely fussed about what other companies do, though, and unlike Call Of Duty there’s little crossover in terms of demographics, between Pokémon and GTA.

The other big hitter is EA’s football series – EA Sports FC, née FIFA – but that’s even less likely than Call Of Duty to change its plans.

For a start, the games tend to launch earlier than most big name franchises, in late September, and while EA may well try to release EA Sports FC 27 a few weeks early it almost certainly has contractual obligations that force it to release a new game every year.

Will Sony and Microsoft react to the GTA 6 delay?

Sony may not be willing to blink, in the face of GTA 6’s launch, but it is likely to upset Microsoft’s plans for 2026. Next year is currently looking to be one of the best ever line-ups for Xbox, as it has four big games scheduled: the Halo: Combat Evolved remake, Gears Of War prequel E-Day, the Fable reboot, and Forza Horizon 6.

While none of them have firm release dates, it’s almost certain that at least one of them was intended to be a major Christmas release. Although Forza Horizon 6 is guaranteed to do well the other three franchises are all much diminished from their heyday, and these new entries are meant to be their big comebacks.

That creates a very difficult decision for Microsoft, which needs all three to be sizeable hits but now cannot risk releasing them during the busiest period of the year for new games.

GTA 6’s delay could even have a knock-on effect for the next generation of consoles: the PlayStation 6 and whatever Microsoft names its next Xbox console.

Neither are expected to arrive until 2027, but GamesIndustry.biz also received a statement from Ampere Analysis research director Piers Harding-Rolls, theorising that Sony and Microsoft may push their plans back so they can ride the GTA 6 wave for longer.

After all, GTA 6 is only scheduled for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S – with no PC version yet confirmed – which is guaranteed to drive up sales for both consoles.

‘As the game is such an important driver of hardware sales – not just at launch but over multiple years – Sony and Microsoft will have wanted a much earlier release than late 2026 so they could generate momentum earlier in the cycle,’ says Harding-Rolls.

‘… Might the console companies be tempted to get more from the current console generation by riding the GTA 6 wave and waiting until 2028? The fact that games are now cross-gen makes this less of a factor, perhaps, but such is the size of the GTA franchise, the launch timing will get all areas of the games business thinking about their product strategies.’

GTA 6’s delay is going to have a far-reaching effect across the games industry, and publishers need to make difficult choices on whether to sacrifice those Christmas sales or take their chances vying for attention alongside the most anticipated video game of all time.

The one upside in all this is that they at least have a year to prepare. Rockstar and Take-Two weren’t taking other companies’ plans into consideration when picking that new date but, unlike Silksong, at least the date change wasn’t announced only a few weeks before launch.

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