Take-Two CEO on GTA 6 delay: 'We've never regretted delaying a game, we seek perfection'

GTA 6 has been delayed for the second time, and now Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick explains why.

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Yesterday, the most anticipated game in the last decade was delayed. GTA 6 is now launching on November 19, 2026, roughly six months after its original planned summertime release. Rockstar Games explains that they pushed the game back to deliver "the level of polish you have come to expect and deserve," (which is what they said last time), and now executive management delivers similar comments about the industry-defining aspirations of Grand Theft Auto 6.

In a recent Q&A with investors during Take-Two's Q2'26 earnings call, company CEO Strauss Zelnick says that delays are painful but necessary--and that the publisher has never regretted pushing a game back to focus on quality.

• Read more: Grand Theft Auto publisher now has 2 of the 5 best-selling video games of all time
• Read more: Take-Two responds to Rockstar Games officially delaying GTA 6
• Read more: GTA 5 has sold more copies than the 7th most populated country in the world

Below is a quick transcript of the exchange:

Christopher Schoell, UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

"On the new GTA timeline, is anything you can share as to what the drivers were? And what gives you confidence that the state will stick?"

Strauss Zelnick Executive Chairman & CEO

"Yes, the drivers are a desire to deliver as perfect an entertainment experience as we possibly can and to try to live up to consumers' extraordinary expectations and then exceed those expectations.

"And it's always painful when we move a date. We have done so occasionally in the past, and we've never regretted it in retrospect.

"I would like to point out that we have some competitors in the event where more polish was required and required slipping a date, they chose not to slip the date, and they did so at their peril."

Grand Theft Auto 6 is scheduled to launch November 19, 2026 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.