Kinda Funny Games Daily: Video Games News Podcast
GTA 6 Delayed Until 2026 - Kinda Funny Games Daily 05.02.25
Fri, 02 May 2025
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Chapter 1: Why was Grand Theft Auto 6 delayed?
Like here's Patreon that I have had set up for quite some time. Would be great if you could support that because I'm going to keep doing a lot more stuff there. And people came through and it really reminded me, it's like, oh no, I got this. When I said at the end of each Game Mess Mornings and then Game Breaking News that the Giant Bomb audience is the best audience in gaming, it was true.
And they've come through and now it's the Jeff Grubb audience. And I am ecstatic to sort of take that and run with it.
So kind of feeling a little bit on top of everything today, where a little bit, you know, not invincible, but like, oh, that armor I've built up of having, like surrounding myself with great people and doing the job the way that I have always said I was going to do the job, which is I'm going to But the people I write for first, the people I'm making content for first.
And, you know, sure, other people saw my paychecks, but I work for this audience and that has paid off repeatedly now. And I think that's where I'm at, where it's like, OK, that was the right choice. And I feel really good about it.
Yeah, I mean, right before we went live, I was telling you this, but I'm going to say it again, even though I've told you many times in the past. I am so impressed with you, and I feel like the last couple years, you went from being a cool guy that knows video games and is great at talking about them on the internet to a true leader in the space.
And the way that you've covered news, the way that you've... just covered video games in general, I think is very inspiring. And I think that I'm not alone in saying that. I know that your word means more than most people's because you know what you're talking about and you make it very clear when you're given an opinion and when you're given a fact.
I think that that balance is something that not everybody is, is capable of. And your work specifically around summer game fest has impressed the living fuck out of me.
The last couple of years of how well organized it was when it's an impossible thing to herd the amount of cats that you had to, but you pulled something special off you and the team, of course, but you specifically, man, like I I've always, always like been incredibly impressed by you. And, Because of all that, I'm not worried about you whatsoever. You're going to be fine.
In fact, I'm very proud of you. Obviously, I don't know every detail of how things went down, but sometimes I'm worried about people when they're in these situations. You are not somebody I'm worried about whatsoever.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of delaying GTA 6?
I know. Right. But it's been around for forever. And, you know, that was from a time when that was a weird thing. Now it's pretty normally, you know, Grand Theft Auto online one and Grand Theft Auto five been running for more than 10 years now. So the the idea here is let's make sure this has a smooth launch, because if it's catastrophic, that is going to hurt us big time in the long run.
Obviously, they'll be able to push it, like bring it back. Like it is too big to fail at a certain point, but they don't want to fail. They want to get it right because that is more money in their pockets right away, and they don't have to spend years sort of fixing something when they could have just got it right in the first place.
So I think that's a big motivating factor here beyond what I believe is a pretty honest desire to avoid crunch.
Joshua Mills Super Chat saying, I say 50-50 chance it gets delayed again to fall 2026. Would that surprise you?
No, no. I don't think any sort of delay with this game would really surprise me at any point. It is just so massive. And, you know, it's going to be the most expensive piece of media ever made, right? Like, by the time it's done. Yeah.
And, I mean, at a certain point, you just got to, like, recognize the bet you're making is so massive that you have to, you know, cross all your T's, dot all your I's. And in that case, there are a lot of T's and I's to dot and cross. So it's going to just take... A lot of effort here. And, you know, it is at this point a year from now. And really, they were planning to maybe release it this fall.
So I guess we can call it a six month delay. But of course, internally, the people actually doing the work never believed it was coming out this year. but okay. An extra six months. Let's just call it that for the sake of the conversation. What can they really do? It's just about making sure everything is that they have is good. They're not changing this game.
It's just going to be like, let's make it as good as possible. We've heard many times stories of games coming together in the last six months to a year and really finding the fun at that point.
And I'm sure they've got a good idea of what this game should be, but I bet they're like, if we just had that extra time, we really could make this what it needs to be to set us up for the next 10 to 15 years.
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Chapter 3: How does the delay affect Take-Two's stock?
In a statement issued on the corporate website, Take-Two reiterated its expectation that the company will achieve sequential increases in and record levels of net bookings revenue in fiscal year 2026 and seven. Zelnick himself commented saying, take two backs rockstar in his decision to delay GTA six and told shareholders, the company expects to deliver a multi-year period of growth.
Quote, we support fully. We've, Support fully Rockstar Games taking additional time to realize their creative vision for GTA 6, which promises to be a groundbreaking blockbuster entertainment experience that exceeds audience expectations.
While we take the movement of our titles seriously and appreciate the vast and deep global anticipation for GTA 6, we remain steadfast in our commitment to excellence. As we continue to release our phenomenal pipeline, we expect to deliver a multi-year period of growth in our business and enhanced value for our shareholders.
Yeah, it's, you know, Take-Two's got plenty of games coming out this year. They'll figure it out, whatever. But they do have to kind of explain this. They have, you know, remember, like, this money that they were putting on the books was something that they were promising last fiscal year. They've been kind of, like, just gesturing to investors for a while now that this, hey, this is happening.
And then, like, that's shifted to this fiscal year, the one we're currently in. And they were making a lot of big promises because, like, we have Civ VII, and we got...
uh borderlands is back and uh we have uh the mafia we got a new mafia game and then and then you know the crown jewel is gonna be there to like you know really put put a spice on top of everything and and you know well things change they're gonna have to explain that to investors uh and their stock price did you know did take a hit Uh, but this game's going to come.
And if, if you're going to want to like get on the take two train as an investor, well then now's the time because Grand Theft, no, no matter what happens with Grand Theft Auto, even if like we were talking about that catastrophic launch that hypothetically could have happened if they rushed the game or whatever, even in that case, it was going to make all the money.
It was going to be the biggest entertainment launch in the history of the world. So, you know, that money is on its way. And I get investors being spooked. They are the most frightened people in the world. But at a certain point, it's like, what do you think is actually going to happen here? And they're just they want those short term gains. So that's what this is about.
We've had so many conversations over the decade about Grand Theft Auto 6, but one that we've had a lot recently is this being the first new GTA in over 10 years, but first new GTA Online experience in over 10 years. Right now, Grubb, do you think that GTA Online and GTA 6, whatever forms that look like, do those launch together on May 26th?
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Chapter 4: Will GTA Online launch alongside GTA 6?
Needless to say, I will no longer be contributing to Giant Bomb, Mike Minotti wrote in a separate post. Nothing but love to all the wonderful people from there and GameSpot. Jeff was a workhorse and a hero for the way he shouldered so much responsibility there, and I'm furious with the way execs treated him.
The news follows an ominous pause on Giant Bomb streams at the end of April and the takedown of an episode of the Giant Bomb cast from YouTube this week after the host mocked apparent, quote, brand safety concerns recently foisted upon them by management at Fandom.
Then in a live stream on April 30th, Reichert, a member of Giant Bomb between 2014 and 2020 who returned in 2022, announced he would no longer be appearing on the show and had no interest in Fandom's vision for Giant Bomb's future. Quote, as you know, we've temporarily paused Giant Bomb live streaming and that content is currently available on demand for our audience.
A spokesperson for fandom told Kotaku in an email, we understand this programming pause isn't ideal for our audience, but it's part of a strategic reset and realignment of our media brands. We have some creative ideas for the future of Giant Bomb that we're actively working on that we'll be able to communicate more about soon.
And then since we were live, Giant Bomb issued a statement saying, we understand your frustration and appreciate your patience. We're actively exploring creative directions for the future of Giant Bomb and and look forward to sharing more with you soon. Jeff, I know we talked a little bit at the top of the show about this, but within the context of all of this, What do you have to say?
Yeah, you know, I can only speak for myself and even then can only really say so much. But I'll say that I really loved working at Giant Bomb and it was it was a privilege. It was something that I did dream about. It was it was awesome to make it happen. It was never, never perfect. But, you know, I've never worked a perfect job. So what am I even talking about?
It was really awesome to be a part of. A big part of that was getting to work with the people I got to work with, who I continue to just think the world of. These things, they happen. And I don't think it's out of pocket to say corporations do struggle to figure out what they want from their media businesses. That's a pretty common thing. I don't think that's unique to fandom.
I think that's across the board. It's a weird space to be in right now. And, um, I, I, I don't envy them having to try to figure that out. And so, uh, part of me is like, Hey, cool. I don't have to now you guys can go do that on your own. And I will go do a Jeff grub stuff. Um, and, and that's been where I'm, that's where I'm at right now, where, uh, you know, it was.
you know, difficult to kind of go, go explain things to my friends at first. And then when, when I got a chance to talk to my wife, explain things to her. And, you know, the thing is like, everyone's like immediate, like really supportive because it turns out like a lot of people believe in, in me more than I even believed in myself. And that is, um, everything. It really is. It's huge.
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Chapter 5: What does the future hold for gaming and consoles?
Keep going. That's hilarious. McGruder replied to the post from his own official Instagram account, praising the studio for hitting the million sales milestone so quickly. One million copies sold and currently one of the highest rated games in history. And yes, it's French. Congratulations to Sandfall Interactive and all the creators of Expedition 33.
You're a shining example of French audacity and creativity. The game was released on April 24th, has enjoyed widespread critical appeal, with the Metacritic score currently standing at 93. The game sold more than 500,000 copies in its first 24 hours, and two days later, passed the million units shipped milestone. This number doesn't even take into account any of the Game Pass stuff.
Jeff, are you playing Expedition?
I am, and I played the preview build that they sent out a few months ago, and immediately I was like, yep. Yep, this is it. This is people are going to lose their minds for this game. It is one of the reasons why when all the sort of concern around Oblivion launching, this is going to bury this game. I'm like... Don't worry, y'all. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be just fine.
In fact, it's going to break through. I was like, it'll sell a million copies in two weeks. Took a day or something like that for it to hit a million copies. It just has the juice. It is a game that fully understands what it is, and then when it understood what it is, and we know how to get the most out of that. The combat is so exquisitely designed. Everything flows into everything else.
Everything pops off the screen. Everything feels so good to do. And I mean, everything. And it's like, I'm so excited to just get back into combat. And then it turns out, great story, great writing, great performances, a really great look. All of the overt... the Francophile-ness of it. I guess it's not Francophile if they're actually French.
So the overt proud heritage that they put into their game is also fantastic. I'm like, I can't wait to see what they're going to do next. Oh my God, a mime? Are you serious? It's so, so cool to see this game really find an audience. And I think it's... The kind of thing that expands the genre.
I think that there is the JRPG, which I think I get technically not Japanese, but this is a game very much inspired by those other games. So let's give it a little bit of respect and say it's trying to be a JRPG. I'm going to call it a JRPG. And the fact that they can be like, okay, we're going to do that, but we're going to do it in our own way.
I think it's going to open a lot of people's eyes to be like, oh, I do like this. Why was I so standoffish with this genre before? And I think it's going to open the eyes of the people that have been working in that space for a long time. I think they're going to feel more emboldened to make games that have a different vibe and a different flavor. It really is just a singular game.
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Chapter 6: What are the reactions from the gaming community?
This thing is just waiting to implode. What's going to happen to these big games that we expect from these big companies in And it's like, look, the reality has changed on the ground. The engines are there and they are, they're mature and people know how to work with them and they can get more out of them than they've ever gotten before. The democratization of the tools has happened.
And now there are several genres where we've seen this happen, where they go away and then indie teams or smaller teams or, you know, just nothing compared to the 500, 600 to a thousand people that make a Ubisoft game or whatever. These smaller teams can, enter these genres and plant their flag and say, we're doing this now. We don't need the biggest teams in the world to do it.
And it's this breadth of fresh air. It's this relief of, oh, these games aren't going to go away. They're just going to come from the bottom instead of from the top. And that's like, oh, my hobby is safe. We're good here. They're charging less money than for games that should be this price. They're actually hitting this price. Yeah, and it's on Game Pass, right?
It's just got everything going for it. And it's, yeah, I think it's going to be special long-term. We're going to look back at this as a moment in gaming.
Yep, I totally agree. And there's something about it, too, that it's all of the elements lined up, but it all comes back to... This is a game made by people for people. Those people are specific. They knew who their audience was, and they made something for those people, and that works. Surprise, surprise.
It's so cool to see that they pulled it off because even my best friend who plays a lot of video games, but usually it's just... Spider-Man 2, The Last of Us, or whatever. And otherwise, he's more old school of a gamer. We grew up playing Final Fantasies together, like 7 and 10 and all that. And I got a couple hours into this game, and I was like, he needs to play this.
And I literally just sent him a code, and I was like... Just boot it up. I don't want to tell you anything. You're going to love this. And he's farther than I am now. Like, he's been addicted the last couple days. And I'm like, they got it. You know what I mean? And he's not somebody that is necessarily willing to just try a random game he knows nothing about.
But, like, from the jump, it was clear that this game had the stuff.
And people in chat pointed out this game got a lot of help from outside studios, and that's true, but that's true of big teams as well. When you read the credits of something like, oh, 1,000 people worked on this game, then you'll get to the point where, and also we got help from this studio, and that's an external team.
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