Grand Theft Auto 6 is the primary main console recreation to launch with out a bodily model. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick doesn’t assume it’ll be the final. Bodily video games will dangle round, however not in any mass-market kind of means. He says they’ll change into nearer to the equal of vinyl information in music.
“It will not be the tip, however pay attention, we’ve been speaking, you and I, for a very long time,” he instructed The Game Business‘ Christopher Dring in a brand new interview. “I predicted that digital distribution can be nicely over 90 p.c of the enterprise greater than 10 years in the past. I don’t at all times get it proper, however this one I bought proper. Will there at all times be some bodily enterprise? Sure, in the identical means that there’s nonetheless a vinyl enterprise in recorded music. But it surely’s going to be a really small a part of the enterprise.”
Bodily music accounted for simply over 10 p.c of complete music income within the first half of 2026, in keeping with estimates by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). That comes out to $581 million, roughly 80 p.c of which was earned by way of gross sales of vinyl.
According to Circana, bodily recreation gross sales within the U.S. final yr hit a 30-year low of $1.5 billion. That was about 2.5 p.c of the $60.7 billion shoppers spent on “online game {hardware}, content material, and equipment” in 2025. Bodily recreation gross sales are already a smaller chunk of total recreation spending than vinyl is for music, and that’s earlier than PlayStation recreation discs go away totally in 2028. Recreation discs turning into vinyl would truly be a rosier outlook than the place issues at present appear to be trending.
We nonetheless don’t understand how Microsoft will strategy bodily media with the launch of its Mission Helix household of next-gen consoles, and Nintendo has confirmed it has no plans to desert bodily video games through the Swap 2 period, even when it’s already taken a half-step in that path with recreation key playing cards.
Will GTA 6 ever get a disc model? Vinyl has been a means for music lovers to immortalize their favourite albums. Absolutely the largest recreation launch ever deserves one thing comparable? Zelnick beforehand shot down rumors that GTA 6 wasn’t coming to disc. He’s now demurred on whether or not it may get a bodily launch sooner or later. That kind of “info at all times comes from our labels,” he told Variety this week, leaving the ball in Rockstar’s courtroom to determine.
GTA 6 is getting a vinyl release for its soundtrack, nonetheless. Appear a bit hypocritical? It’s in all probability much less stunning when, as revealed in Take-Two’s newest financials, solely 2 p.c of its present income comes from game discs.