The Grand Theft Auto VI effect on the video game calendar

The result of this collective caution is an unprecedented saturation of the period between the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. September looks particularly congested: the PlayStation exclusive Wolverine will open the strip on September 15th, followed in the following days by Dune: Awakening, Control Resonant, Silent Hill: Townfall and Onimusha: Way of the Sword, to then arrive in October with Ace Combat 8 and the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. Other publishers have preferred to postpone the projects directly to 2027, as demonstrated by SEGA’s announcements for Stranger Than Heaven, by Bandai Namco for Gundam Rogue Orbit and the postponement of Fable confirmed by Microsoft, which explicitly cited market saturation and the presence of GTA VI among the reasons for the postponement.

The publishers’ prudence is based on solid commercial foundations, considering that the previous chapter of the saga has exceeded 230 million copies sold. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick recently told investors he expected record operating results to coincide with the game’s launch. However, the choice to concentrate dozens of big-budget productions into a few weeks creates a different sustainability problem, forcing consumers to choose between multiple popular titles released at the same time, often even on the same day.

In this scenario of general retreat, the only notable exception could be represented by Nintendo. The Kyoto house has outlined the summer calendar with minor releases and has not yet revealed detailed plans for the Christmas season, presumably linked to the debut of the new console. The company’s historical tendency to move independently from the dynamics of the rest of the sector makes it plausible that a major launch will coincide with the month of November, positioning itself as the only potential counterweight on the market.