Take-Two CEO calls discs pointless as GTA 6 skips them too
Strauss Zelnick says physical discs 'don't really make sense' for consumers, as both Rockstar and Sony move away from them. GTA 6 pre-orders are 'unprecedented,' he adds.
The box is real. The disc is not.
When Rockstar and Take-Two announced GTA 6 pricing back on June 25, the numbers got most of the headlines. A $79.99 base price. A $99.99 ultimate edition. But a quieter detail stirred up just as much noise: the so-called physical edition of the game will ship in a GTA 6 branded box containing a digital download code, not an actual disc. Some retailers have reportedly pushed back hard enough to say they will refuse to carry the title unless Rockstar puts a disc in the package.
That backlash reached Take-Two’s earnings call on August 7, and CEO Strauss Zelnick did not shy away from the topic.
‘Who cares if you download digitally?’
“So in certain instances, especially if it’s a big game, discs just, and note I said discs, don’t really make sense for the consumer,” Zelnick said, as reported by Dexerto. He leaned on a point that feels increasingly hard to argue against: most games require an online connection to play anyway. “Also, in most instances you have to register online to play anyhow. So if you’re already connected, who cares if you download digitally? It’s all the same and it’s much more convenient.”
He did leave a small door open for physical releases down the road, reaching for a comparison that music fans will recognize. “It doesn’t mean that we won’t have physical editions now and then, I’m sure we will in the same way that there’s still vinyl in the recorded music business. But in other instances, it just won’t make sense.”
The vinyl analogy is worth sitting with for a second. Vinyl is beloved, but it is also a niche product sold to enthusiasts who seek it out. If that is the future of physical gaming, then the days of a disc being the default are already over in Zelnick’s mind.
Sony is heading the same direction
Rockstar is not alone here. According to Dexerto, Sony plans to stop releasing new PlayStation games on disc entirely starting in 2028. That is a significant signal from the platform holder that built its current generation hardware around a disc drive that many users paid extra to keep. Zelnick acknowledged the alignment directly: “That’s where the world is going in our opinion and I think Sony understands that. We certainly understand that.”
Taken together, the two announcements sketch a fairly clear picture of where the major players expect the industry to land within the next few years. The disc is not dying dramatically. It is just quietly being phased to the margins.
Pre-orders ‘unprecedented’
While controversy over packaging formats swirled, Zelnick did find something straightforwardly positive to report. GTA 6 pre-orders have been “unprecedented for the industry as a whole,” he said during the call, according to Dexerto. He declined to share specific figures, but “unprecedented” is not a word executives tend to throw around loosely on earnings calls, where precision and caution are the defaults.
That number, whatever it actually is, may tell the real story here. If tens of millions of people are already committed to buying GTA 6 digitally or with a download-code box, then the disc argument becomes harder to sustain commercially, regardless of how strongly a subset of fans feel about owning something physical. The retailers threatening to pull the title will have to weigh their principle against the foot traffic a GTA launch reliably generates.
The question hanging over all of this is not really about discs anymore. It is about what ownership means when the thing you bought lives on a server.
Will GTA 6 have a physical disc version?
According to reporting by Dexerto, the GTA 6 physical edition will include a branded box with a digital download code rather than a disc. Rockstar has not announced a disc-based release.
What did Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick say about physical discs?
During Take-Two's August 7 earnings call, Zelnick said discs 'don't really make sense for the consumer' and described the shift to digital as 'where the world is going,' while allowing that physical editions might still appear occasionally, the way vinyl persists in music.
Is Sony also dropping physical game discs?
As reported by Dexerto, Sony plans to stop releasing new PlayStation games on discs starting in 2028.
How are GTA 6 pre-orders performing?
Zelnick described GTA 6 pre-orders as 'unprecedented for the industry as a whole' during the earnings call, though he declined to share specific numbers.