The GTA6 Hype Is Unmatched. Shame About the Disc.

You'd have to be living under a rock not to have noticed. GTA6 mania has properly taken hold. Brands are reskinning their products in that unmistakable Vice City palette, every scrap of new footage gets picked apart frame by frame within minutes of dropping, and half of gaming Twitter seems to exist purely to speculate about the next trailer. This is shaping up to be one of the defining media releases of our generation. Even the extended gameplay look barely scratched the surface of what people actually want to know.

Here's where it gets interesting for collectors, though. When Rockstar opened pre-orders, the physical edition turned out to be a bit of a curveball: the boxed version doesn't actually contain a disc. It's a code in a case. That went down like a lead balloon with physical media fans, and a fair few retailers have already said they won't stock it on principle.

Releasing digital only at launch means Rockstar keeps that first wave completely under control. No early discs floating around, no risk of the game leaking before the 19th November date. But there's more to it than plugging leaks. Keeping the launch digital-only for now still lets digital sales tick over, and it leaves the door open for a proper disc release a few weeks later, giving collectors a reason to buy the game twice. Given how much noise this release has already generated, a limited, staggered disc drop feels exactly like the kind of move Rockstar would make.

We've genuinely put money on it. A tenner short of a proper wager, £50 riding on a mate that this disc edition turns up before the end of 2027. Whether we're right remains to be seen. As physical media collectors ourselves, we're hoping it comes to fruition.