With Grand Theft Auto 5 making more money than any entertainment product ever, Grand Theft Auto 6 is an inevitability. However, creating a game on the scale of a Grand Theft Auto title takes time, and with the video game industry soon transitioning to next-generation consoles, many fans don't expect to see Grand Theft Auto 6 for years. This opinion is shared by Jefferies analyst Alex Giaimo, who has told investors to hold off on purchasing stock of Rockstar Games' parent company Take-Two Interactive.

Giaimo doesn't believe Take-Two's stock price will rise because Grand Theft Auto 6 is too far away from release. Giaimo has made the prediction that the GTA 6 release date will be sometime after fiscal year 2022. With next-generation consoles not set to launch until late 2020, this prediction makes sense, and it honestly would be surprising to see the game launch before then.

That being said, some "leaks" have offered far more optimistic GTA 6 release dates, though it's quite likely that they were based on false information. For example, there was one "leak" a few months back that suggested that the GTA 6 release date would be as early as 2020, and that the game would serve as a launch title for the PlayStation 5.

While anything is possible, the GTA 6 release date being in 2020 seems highly unlikely. Far more rumors from more credible sources have pointed to Rockstar's next game being Bully 2, not GTA 6, so if Rockstar releases any video game in 2020, it seems as though that game would be a more likely candidate.

As for GTA 6, it's hard to say when exactly its release date will be, but perhaps it will come out as late as 2023. This would be put it 10 years removed from Grand Theft Auto 5, which is still receiving regular content updates and support from Rockstar. 10 years between major releases seems like it's becoming the norm for some of gaming's biggest open world franchises, as Bethesda indicated that it could very well be 10 years between Skyrim and The Elder Scrolls 6 as well, and it was almost 10 years between the release of Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2.

Whenever the GTA 6 release date is, it's a safe bet that the game will launch for next-generation platforms. Considering this, don't expect to learn about GTA 6's location, story, characters, gameplay, or anything else until Sony and Microsoft properly unveil their next-gen consoles at the earliest.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is rumored to be in development for unspecified platforms.

Source: Barron's