{"id":882346,"date":"2026-10-14T19:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T19:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/882346\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T19:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T19:40:16","slug":"when-rockstar-needed-to-delay-gta-6-again-take-twos-ceo-replied-please-tell-me-youre-kidding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/882346\/","title":{"rendered":"When Rockstar Needed To Delay GTA 6 Again, Take-Two’s CEO Replied: ‘Please Tell Me You’re Kidding’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In May 2025, Rockstar announced it was delaying Grand Theft Auto 6 until May 2026. Then, a few months later, it announced it was delaying GTA 6 again to November 2026<\/a>. For many fans, these back-to-back delays were excruciating and disappointing. And for Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, it apparently seemed like a prank.<\/p>\n

On October 14, Bloomberg published a lengthy report<\/a> about Rockstar Games and its work on GTA 6<\/a>, its upcoming open-world crime simulator that is set to be the biggest game release of the decade when it arrives on November 19. However, remember that when the game was first revealed in December 2023, Rockstar promised a launch window of 2025. According to Rockstar\u2019s leaders, they believed that was possible, though some devs below them weren\u2019t convinced. But as they got closer, Rockstar North\u2019s head of development and co\u2013studio head Rob Nelson realized they needed more time.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou feel a huge pressure and obligation to deliver the highest-quality game in the most aggressive time scale that you can,\u201d Nelson told Bloomberg. \u201cAnd then you keep evaluating it as you go. And then you have to decide when you get within striking distance of that if it is actually achievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the devs told Rockstar head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe to phone up Take-Two boss Zelnick to ask for more time, which he granted<\/a>. Then a few months later in 2025, Kolbe had to ring him up again to ask for another delay, this time pushing GTA 6 back until November 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he said, \u2018You\u2019re kidding,’\u201d recalled Kolbe. \u201cPlease tell me you\u2019re kidding,\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cBut once we talked through why, he got it. And I think we are really lucky that he is as reasonable as he is, because a lot of people would say, \u2018You\u2019d just better figure out how to ship it.\u2019 And we have been really, really lucky that we have not found ourselves in that place, because that happens to a lot of teams, and we\u2019ve all played those games. It\u2019s not great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zelnick explained that it\u2019s usually a \u201cwise investment in time\u201d and resources to give devs more time and delay a game\u2019s launch in order for it to \u201creach the level of perfection it has the ability to reach.\u201d Still, I get the feeling that was not a fun call for him or Kolbe.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In May 2025, Rockstar announced it was delaying Grand Theft Auto 6 until May 2026. Then, a few…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[49206,49207,29611,210452,74],"class_list":["post-882346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-grand-theft-auto-6","tag-gta-6","tag-rockstar-games","tag-strauss-zelnick","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}