GTA

Players celebrate that ‘GTA VI’ will cost 80 euros. It turns out that only the 100 euro ‘special’ is the entire game

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‘GTA VI‘ is the topic of the week in video games. Of the year, if you hurry me. The Rockstar title is a generational game and today reservations are open to get a digital version or a box that Does not include the game in physical format. That is, precisely, one of the controversies, but not the only one. The other has to do with the price. We have had rumors and leaks for months suggesting that ‘GTA VI’ was going to be the 100 euro game. Nintendo came close with the 90 euros of the ‘Mario Kart World‘, but many eyes were still on that ‘GTA VI’ whose development has been so monumental and expensive that it seemed to justify a considerable increase in price. In the end, it turned out that the game arrives for 80 euros in its standard version. But the twist is that there is a 100 euro version, one called ‘Ultimate’ that doesn’t feel like an ‘Ultimate’ edition: feels like the real ‘GTA VI’. Because this edition is not a collection of skins, as happens in other games: they are content that is unlocked as we progress through the game and are “threaded in all aspects of the story” of its protagonists, according to Rockstar itself. And it ranges from exclusive stores, items for the protagonists, vehicles of all kinds and some missions. The key to the Ultimate edition of ‘GTA VI’ On the website, Rockstar describes this edition as follows: “Welcome to Leonida, the state where anything goes. Get everything this vast world has to offer with Grand Theft Auto VI: Ultimate Edition, an exclusive collection of premium vehicles, weapons, fashion and action galore. The Ultimate Edition’s bonus content runs through Jason and Lucia’s story, discovering new items in each chapter.” We are used to the fact that when a game comes out in two editions, we have the full experience in the base edition and then an ‘Ultimate’ or ‘Complete’ edition that includes a code with skins. There may be some other element such as a vehicle or a couple of exclusive weapons, but in the end it is nothing that alters the experience too much. These contents are usually unlocked from the beginning of the adventure if we enter the code, but In the case of ‘GTA VI Ultimate’ things seem slightly different. As the company has commented, these new contents will be unlocked not all at once, but as we complete steps in the adventures of its protagonists. And that, with my experience as a player, sounds to me like content that has always been unlocked as we played, without having to pay anything else, but that now they want to pass off as additional content. Because yes, we have some different weapons, vehicles, tattoos, hairstyles and outfits, but also two car modification workshops, a new safe house in one of the areas, a store that only opens with this version and what seems like a mission or event in which we can raid the warehouse of a gang in the city to recover their merchandise. As I say, all of that sounds to me like content that, In another era, we would have been achieving with the normal course of the adventure. And for this reason, precisely, it gives rise to thinking that the ‘GTA VI’ that they had in mind from the beginning was the one for 100 euros, and that this so-called ‘Ultimate Edition’ is nothing more than the standard version, but with a cut version for 80 euros so as not to be ‘GTA’ the saga that raised the games to the 100 euro barrier. Because, in the end, no matter how much of a ‘GTA’ you are, the price of a video game matters. For example, the one that got involved when PS5 raised the price of some games up to 80 euros or when Nintendo did it a year ago with 90 euros. In fact, Rockstar must be quite happy with Nintendo for the 90 euros of ‘Mario Kart World’. And, speaking of Nintendo, another detail that gives rise to thinking that the ‘GTA VI’ “really” is the 100 euro one is the one that was set up when Nintendo launched ‘Donkey Kong Bananza‘ for 80 euros and, just a month later, it released a DLC that they most likely already had prepared for the original launch, but costing 20 euros. In practice, whoever wanted the complete game ‘dropped’ 100 euros in just a month and a half. But hey, price and controversies aside, ‘GTA VI’ is going to be a generational game. Rockstar has been cooking this work for more than a decade, which has become, possibly, the most expensive entertainment product ever created. It is a game that will not leave anyone indifferent and that, without really having many details about it, fills rivers of digital ink and a lot of content on YouTube. It also seems that they want to get rid of all the negative aspects as soon as possible so that the launch on November 19 goes as smoothly as possible. Although Rockstar must deal not only with issues such as price or differences between versions, but with much more serious things such as the denounced treatment of its workers and their rights. And if Reddit is a thermometer, it is neither hot nor cold, with users defending the decision and others questioning, precisely, that content is blocked. In Xataka | There are more and more physical video games that are paperweights. It is a tremendous problem for video games as art.

The GTA VI trailer is about to drop, but Rockstar wants you to keep talking about the game with a barrage of hyper-realistic screenshots

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If you thought today was well stocked with news about ‘GTA VI‘, Rockstar has decided not to. Today the editions have been known and the price of the game, with pre-orders opening at midnight on June 25. But to make sure we spend the day talking about his next gamethe company has updated its official materials with 70 captures in 4Kshowing characters, vehicles, settings, weapons and outfits with a level of detail that invites you to enlarge each image. At the time of writing there is no third trailer, but instead we have screenshots. Lots of catches. The cast. About half of the capture collection is from characters in the game: Jason Duval and Lucía Caminos have six captures each, and the game’s six confirmed supporting players (Cal Hampton, Boobie Ike, Dre’Quan Priest, Real Dimez, Raul Bautista and Brian Heder) have four captures each. Some clues about the most notorious: Jason Duval grew up surrounded by criminals, went through the army and ended up working for local drug traffickers. Lucia, for her part, has just been released from prison and wants to once and for all get the good life that her mother dreamed of in Liberty City. The secondary ones form an ecosystem of criminals from different strata. For example, Boobie Ike is a local Vice City legend, with an empire that spans from real estate to a strip club to a recording studio. Dre’Quan Priest is an ambitious producer who wants to turn the Real Dimez duo into stars, that is, Bae-Luxe and Roxy, friends since high school who turned their experience extorting neighborhood dealers into viral rap songs. And there’s more: Raul Bautista is a veteran bank robber and Brian Heder, an old-school smuggling narco who still moves product through his shipyard with his third wife. The places. Many of the other captures are from locations. Rockstar has confirmed six main areas of the game’s map: Vice City, Leonid Keys, Grassrivers Marshes, Port Gellhorn, Ambrosia, and Mount Kalaga National Park. And with these captures we can immerse ourselves a little more in the careful setting: Vice City as Miami amplified (and interiors of a good number of the city’s nightlife venues); the Leonida Keys, Brian Heder’s territory (water everywhere, boats, that aspect of deep Florida that seems in a perpetual state of decomposition…) And there is more: Port Gellhorn as an industrial port area, and Ambrosia and Grassrivers that suggest a humid interior of dense vegetation, in the style of the Everglades swamps. Finally, Mount Kalaga National Park, the greenest and wildest space in the pack: a mountain full of forests that contrasts with all the coastal asphalt that abounds in the rest of the images. The cherry on top: the Vice City Vintage Pack. Twelve screenshots that capture, with all the impudence in the world, the decadent neon atmosphere of ‘Miami Vice’, the series that has always been the unconfessed reference framework of Vice City. With the announcement of the packs It has been specified what this includesand it is a paradise for devotees of shoulder pads and hairspray: the ’55 Vapid Stanier as an exclusive vehicle, a multitude of customization options for 80s hairstyles and clothing, and tropical patterns to decorate the weapons inspired by Tommy Vercetti’s Hawaiian shirt. But… are they catches? It is the great mystery that Rockstar, of course and by the account it brings, does not resolve: none of the 70 screenshots show a HUD. There’s no health bar, no minimap, no money gauge, and none of them take the third-person perspective of ‘GTA’. That, added to the hyperrealism of the graphics (the fluids and the hairstyles are especially spectacular) lead us to the usual question: cinematic or gameplay? Rockstar describes them as screenshotswhich, to be strict, would refer to game sequences, but we have already been teased too many times with that issue since the days of the Spectrum. So the doubt remains on the table, but in the meantime, we can celebrate neon, phosphorus and satin white nights.

The physical edition of ‘GTA VI’ will be discless and will come with a code. The sad thing is that it has stopped surprising

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‘GTA VI‘is warming up. After the second trailer shown in the middle of last year, Rockstar has remained almost stony silent. After a new delay that brought the launch to November 19 of this year, the messages have not arrived even with a dropper, but Reservations open this June 25 and they are going to put the marketing machine at full power. This is allowing us to learn about news such as new (and impressive) screenshots, the price of ‘GTA VI’ and, above all, the fear for many users: The physical version of ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ will not include the disc. It is something that is no longer surprising. The physical ‘GTA VI’ Schrödinger Although we are still waiting for the launch of the third trailer for the game, which is estimated to arrive to accompany the opening of the reservation period, Rockstar did not want to be begged and has been advancing some details. To begin with, an avalanche of screenshots that reconfirm that the game is one of the most ambitious of this generation of consoles. Because ‘GTA VI’ is a game that the company has been cooking for years, it is its first title for the current generation of consoles and it is noticeable that the ‘Red Dead Redemption 2‘ for PS5 and Xbox Series X They have allowed them to learn about the machines to get all the juice possible. Visually, ‘GTA VI’ is going to be crazy The more ambitious you are with the visual and technical section and the size of the game itself, the more complicated it is to condense the product on a disc, and with ‘GTA VI’ it is confirmed that will not have a real physical edition. Before we start evaluating, here is what Rockstar has announced: “Players who pre-order the digital versions of Grand Theft Auto VI will be able to begin pre-loading on November 12, to ensure they can play at launch on November 19. The physical version of Grand Theft Auto VI will include a download code inside the box and will be available starting November 12 to allow pre-loading.” That physical games are not physical games is something that, unfortunately, is no longer an exception. The Game Key Card of nintendo switch 2 They go straight: they are not a game in physical format. Games that are a ‘Code in a box’ are not either, even if that code comes in a box, and ‘GTA VI’ will belong to that second group. This, which has been like this for decades in the PC world, was not so widespread in console games (aside from Nintendo Switch, where a few have already appeared), and it seems that ‘GTA VI’ will be so big, or will have so little sense in its physical version 1.0, that it is not worth it to start “printing” discs. And, as a player who loves the physical format because it is not a simple license to use that the companies they can remove you from your account When they consider that you should no longer have what you paid for, the decision that there is no ‘GTA VI’ in physical format is as sad as it is… curious. Curious because reserving makes no sense beyond whether you want that box with the cover, since You won’t be left without a game on launch day because, in essence, this physical version is a digital version. As digital as what you can buy in the Xbox and PlayStation online store. The twist of ending with the second hand In fact, even if ‘GTA VI’ fits on one Blu Ray (or two, there’s no harm in putting it in two, ‘Final Fantasy VII Rebirth‘, ‘Cyberpunk 2077‘ or Rockstar’s own ‘Red Dead Redemption 2’ come on two discs), for the company it makes perfect sense that the game is a code and not a Blu-Ray. If everything comes true, and if it turns out as Rockstar hopes, ‘GTA VI’ will be the generational game in the same way they were ‘San Andreas‘ either ‘GTA V‘. It is that game that sells an obscene amount of units and, by ensuring that there is no physical ‘GTA VI’, Rockstar ensures that everyone who wants it has to buy it from them. If I buy the game, I pass it on and leave it to a friend, there are two of us who have played it, but Rockstar has only seen one sale. The same if I sell it to a second-hand store where, to make matters worse, it is the store that takes the profit. If there is no disc, both my friend and I will have to buy the game, and there Rockstar sees two sales. Oh yes, the price of ‘GTA VI’: 80 euros for the normal version, 100 for the ‘Ultimate’. The current evil of games in physical format One of the problems that the current video game industry has is that many releases in physical format are not, really, a physical format. They come in a box, they come with a Blu-Ray, but that 100 GB Blu-Ray only has a few few megabytes of information. What that disk has inside is the code, the key that communicates with the store and that gives you access to download the game. It’s not tied to your account (if you resell it, that other person can download the game again), but you have to play with the disc inserted no matter what and, in x years, when stores or servers close, you will only have a nice paperweight. In short: if I turn on my PS1, my PS2 or my PS3 today, I can play my copy of ‘Final Fantasy VII’ in physical format. When I turn on my PS5 in 20 years, like Microsoft has retired it, the licenses have expired or whatever, I won’t be able to play to ‘Doom The Dark Ages‘ on disk. That is why initiatives such as that of Stop … Read more

‘GTA VI’ will arrive in several editions and we already know their prices

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How much will it cost ‘Grand Theft Auto VI‘? This is the question that those of us who are waiting for the launch of Rockstar have asked ourselves most in recent months, one that will be the most important in recent years. We already know that the reservation period it opens just tomorrowJune 25, although the question of the price remained to be resolved. And we already know: will start at $79.99. Prices and different versions of ‘GTA VI’ We are going to summarize the most important things you need to know before pre-ordering the game, which will arrive, at launch, only on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. The first thing is that, as Rockstar itself has announced, the reservation will start at 00:00 local time tomorrow, June 25. Right at that moment we will have the opportunity to reserve one of the two editions in which the game will arrive: a standard edition (which is the one that will cost $79.99) and a special one called ‘Ultimate Edition’, which will cost $99.99, as our colleagues from 3DJuegos explain. And what differences are there between both versions? The ‘Ultimate Edition’ includes several incentives that are exclusive to this edition. There is a little bit of everything: from vehicles, weapons and a collection of clothing to certain places that we can only visit if we buy said edition. These locations include a tattoo parlor or a selection of classic cars that we can personalize. Does not include early access to the game. Both editions will arrive on November 19, although we will be able to pre-download and install the game starting November 12. This way, when it’s 00:00 on launch day, we can start playing without having to wait for the download (which, presumably, will be very large). Keep in mind that the physical version of the game will come without a disc, but will only come with a download code. Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Rockstar In Xataka | The best TVs to play and get the most out of your PS5 or Xbox Series In Xataka | Five very useful accessories to accompany a PlayStation 5: from batteries and supports to SSD drives

The new trailer for ‘GTA VI’ will be out on May 14 at 11:00. The science of astrology says so

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Esperanza Gracia already said it: if Mercury is retrograde, we have to wonder when the third trailer for ‘GTA VI‘. The stars carry millennia guiding humanity, but they also serve something equally important as trying to guess when we’ll see the next Rockstar release. Those responsible for it affirm that the marketing campaign will begin very soon, but a Reddit user tells us about the future: the new trailer for ‘GTA VI’ will arrive next May 14 at 11:00. The most curious thing is that it is not about another leakbut something much more mathematical because the user has been studying the universe for three months and drawing a line that relates the planetary positions for each launch trailer of a Rockstar game since 2007. And just for their effort, Rockstar should give them a treat. ‘GTA VI’ and Pluto Sagittarius The first trailer for ‘GTA VI’ arrived on December 4, 2023 and the second just a year agoon May 6. Rockstar is taking it easy and it is no wonder. Between the ambition and the state of the industry, it seems that the universe has put it on the shoulders of the developer to once again demonstrate what a great blockbuster is that arrives polished from day one. This “universe” thing can be literal. On Reddit (where else), user JalapenoPoppers24 has hanging an extensive message in which, accompanied by graphics, it demonstrates why on May 14 we will have the final trailer for ‘GTA VI’. “Final trailer” refers to the last big trailer before the game’s release (set a year ago for this May 26 before delayed again until November 19), regardless of whether they later publish other videos explaining mechanics and details like that. Science He claims to have spent three months working on this and I could paraphrase, but it seems to me to be one of those dementias that no longer exists and I think that the message must be transmitted exactly as Jalapeno devised it. Here it goes: “I got the exact UTC timestamp of all 26 confirmed Rockstar reveal events from GTA IV onwards (every trailer, every gameplay video, every launch trailer) and analyzed the geocentric ecliptic longitudes of the 9 classic bodies in each release. The spreadsheet got pretty out of hand. Pluto was in Sagittarius in 24 of the 26 posts. Neptune has been in Pisces for 19 of them. The Sun was in Libra, Scorpio or Taurus 58% of the time, when chance would dictate 25%. The Mercury-Sun conjunction (within 8°) appeared in 8 of the 26 posts, which is a third of the sample for a configuration that occurs about 11% of the time in any given year. The graphics are attached. The methodology is in the comments in case anyone wants to verify it. Unappealable The most interesting pattern of the outer planets is the collapse of the Saturn-Pluto separation. From the first RDR2 trailer in 2016 to the RDR2 PC launch trailer in 2019, each release occurred with Saturn and Pluto less than 24° apart, and most less than 15° apart, leading up to the exact Saturn-Pluto conjunction in January 2020. They were running their entire marketing campaign within that aspect. For GTA 6, both Trailer 1 (December 2023) and Trailer 2 (May 2025) were released with Saturn in Pisces and Mars-Saturn in a closed square. The current position of Saturn (Aries, in transition) and the upcoming Sun-Mercury conjunction in mid-Taurus dramatically reduce the window of the next astrological ‘signature’. I graded each day from May 1 to August 31, 2026 based on Rockstar’s historical footprint (Sun sign weight, Mercury sign weight, Saturn sign weight, Sun-Mercury conjunction, Mars-Saturn square, Thursday bonus). The highest scoring date in the entire 123-day window is Thursday, May 14, 2026, with 12 out of 16 points. Sun in Taurus at 23°, Mercury conjunct Sun at 4°, Saturn in Aries, Venus in Leo, Thursday (the 12th of the 26 historical posts). It’s also exactly one week and one day after the anniversary of GTA 6 Trailer 2, AND falls on the same calendar day (the 14th) as GTA V Trailer 2, which Rockstar postponed from November 2 to November 14 in 2012. The 14th is no coincidence. I’ll put a reminder on the calendar. If Trailer 3 comes out on May 14 at 11:00 AM EDT, I want to be remembered.” For all this, Jalapeno has used the NASA JPL Horizons API, but also other sources to draw much more precisely the line that has reached think know when the trailer will be released. Because There is no speculation here, there is science and the same user points out that the margin of error was 30 minutes, but that he managed to refine it to know, exactly, that it will come out at 11 EDT (North American Eastern Time) I confess something: I got lost since the Sun was in Libra, Scorpio or Taurus 58% of the time. I know how to analyze mobile phones, I know advanced lithography, but I leave astrology to the professionals. It’s only clear to me that the 14th is not a coincidence and that I already know that I have to put on the tuxedo to receive the new video. Yes it is very clear I admit that I had a good time writing this, but beyond the joke (no joke, what a great job by JalapenoPoppers24), it is evident that Take-Two and Rockstar They are fine-tuning the machinery facing a marketing campaign that aims to be one of the most brutal we have seen in the industry. The development budget for this installment is unknown, but everything indicates that it will shatter all records and, as I say, sooner rather than later we will have news. A few days ago, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two, pointed out that the marketing campaign will begin “soon” and… it makes some sense that the new trailer will be released before May 21. It will be that day when Zelnick … Read more

‘GTA Online’ has been making more revenue than many new games for 13 years

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A game released in 2013 for previous generation consoles is earning more than a million dollars a day in 2026. It is the online mode of ‘Grand Theft Auto V’, which has just a few months left before its own creators try to replace it with the most anticipated sequel in video game history, ‘GTA VI‘. The dilemma this poses for Rockstar is unprecedented (and the figures that show it came in a not exactly official way). The hacking. On April 11, the ShinyHunters group (responsible for previous security breaches in Ticketmaster or Santander bank, among others) accessed the Rockstar Games servers through an exploit in cloud management software. The company confirmed the attack, although it described it as having limited impact on its operations. What hackers posted after Rockstar refused to pay a ransom for the information it was not code from the long-awaited ‘GTA VI0, but business metrics extracted from the internal analytics platform Anodot. And what they leaked was not bad news, quite the opposite. To the point that Take-Two’s shares rose as soon as it went public. A million a day. According to leaked information (which Rockstar has neither confirmed nor denied), ‘GTA Online’ earned an average of $9.59 million per week between September 2025 and April 2026, with a weekly maximum of almost 28 million and a minimum of 4.7 million. The annual figure is around 500 million dollars. More than a million a day, not bad for a game that debuted in 2013. How they do it. The backbone of the model is Shark Cards, packs of virtual currency that players purchase to acquire cars, properties or weapons within the game. The Shark Cards generated more than 5 billion dollars between 2014 and 2024but the thing is that only 4% of the active player base has spent real money on the game. They are the so-called “whales”, users who concentrate practically all of the spending, and who generate these exorbitant incomes. ‘GTA Online’ is, in that sense, a business model like the most aggressive free-to-play games. The cherry on top of GTA+. Added to all this is GTA+, a paid monthly subscription that Rockstar launched in 2022 and which, according to the same leaked data, reached its peak of 1.3 million subscribers in December 2025, coinciding with the launch of the update.A Safehouse In The Hills‘. It added luxury mansions to the game and resumed the narrative of ‘GTA V’ with the reappearance of one of its protagonists, Michael. The death of ‘Red Dead Online’. These figures also explain why Rockstar stopped updating ‘Red Dead Online’ regularly. The online mode of ‘Red Dead Redemption 2’ generated an average of $507,000 per week between June 2024 and April 2026, compared to 9.59 million weekly for ‘GTA Online’. Take-Two was immediately clear where resources needed to be concentrated. Coexistence. Although Rockstar has not officially detailed what its online component will look like, leaked court documents They suggest that ‘GTA VI’ will include a multiplayer mode (something that, now that the colossal income of ‘GTA Online’ is known, no one doubts). But at the same time, that’s the problem: in a message to shareholders in FebruaryTake-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said that “I have every reason to believe that we will continue to support ‘GTA Online’. There is a large community that enjoys it and remains engaged.” Does that imply two live-services simultaneous, with the consequent investment in resources, updates and player service? There is a precedent. When ‘GTA Online’ arrived on PS4 and Xbox One in 2014, Rockstar did not close the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. Both generations coexisted for more than a year receiving the same content, and in 2015 the ‘Ill-Gotten Gains Part 2’ update was the last significant one for the old platforms. Even so, those servers were not permanently turned off until December 2021, six years later. The history problem. If they were two different services, the online mode of ‘GTA VI’ would arrive without twelve years of updates, without thousands of accumulated missions, without the ecosystem of properties, vehicles and businesses that ‘GTA Online’ players have built for more than a decade. The examples of sequels that failed to attract the players of the previous game are numerous, but ‘Payday 3’ stands out among them all (the number of players for ‘Payday 2’ is still five times higher). Big losses. Players who have spent years accumulating virtual money, garages, businesses and personalized clothing in ‘GTA Online’ will hardly dare to start from scratch. And at the moment no one has dared to talk about a transfer of assets between both games: the practical and design implications of such an exchange make it practically unfeasible. (And so not to mention FiveMthe community role-playing mod based on ‘GTA V’ that Rockstar bought in 2023 and is still an active source of income). Most likely. As Kotaku predictswe’ll most likely see a multi-year period of coexistence, with Rockstar gradually trying to move the user base from one game to another while keeping both running. Controlled closure of ‘GTA Online’, indefinite maintenance with minimal updates or something in between? It all depends on how fast ‘GTA VI Online’ grows into a game that, let’s not forget, will attract thousands of new players. At the moment, the bar he has to reach is very high. In Xataka | In a time when almost no one develops their own graphics engine, ‘GTA VI’ arrives to punch the table

The biggest find in twelve years of GTA archeology came from an Edinburgh flea market and a used Xbox 360

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It’s fascinating when we discover details years (even decades) after a game’s release that hadn’t come to light before. Secret levels in classics that everyone had examined from cover to cover, unrevealed meanings, unsolved puzzles… and sometimes, versions of the games that should never have seen the light of day and that give clues about the ideas that were considered in the development process. The latest case in that sense: ‘GTA IV’. What has happened? Last weekend, a user of GTAForums known as janmatant He paid £5 at a flea market in Edinburgh for an Xbox 360 in not very good condition. At home he discovered that the console was running Xshell, the operating system for Microsoft development kits. The 120 GB hard drive contained a single game: a beta version of ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ dated November 2007, several months before its commercial release. The treasures he found were poured into the thread GTA IV Beta Huntwho has been tracking unreleased content from the game since 2014 (and which has generated 14 new pages of comments since posting janmatant). GTA IV on the trail. That the discovery occurred in Edinburgh is not at all coincidental. Rockstar North has been based in the capital since it was DMA Design, in 1987, and that is why the console ended up in the hands of a scrap dealer, a process that clearly should not have happened. Development kits are proprietary hardware that Microsoft distributes exclusively to studios (and in those days also to the press) to run games in conditions close to the final hardware. In theory, at the end of a project cycle, those units are returned or destroyed, but this was not the case. 118 gigabytes of Liberty City. After confirming by the serial number that the devkit was authentic, janmatant uploaded the content to the Internet Archive under the title “Great Stealing of Vehicles four XDK”. The 118 GB file is it executable on a real Xbox 360 with debugging tools, although a fully playable version is not yet ready. The most immediate find was the Liberty City ferries. The barges appear in the game’s first trailer and in some cutscenes, but in the final game they are just a set piece. The realistic ‘GTA IV’ opted for a world focused on cars and taxis and in its day, Obbe Vermeij, former technical director of Rockstar North, counted that the shuttles were removed late in development, with models already finished. Zombie mode. There had always been rumors about a zombie mode for which we had never had solid evidence. Herein build We find hospital beds with direct references to zombies, early models of infected characters and several animations associated with this variant. The Cutting Room Floorthe wiki dedicated to documenting cut content in video games, had already listed the project as “Z: Resurrection” based on code fragments found in the final version, but without visual material to support it. A former Rockstar developer It has taken away some of the epicness of the matter: According to him, zombie mode was simply an “experiment” that artists and programmers played to develop in parallel, not a formal production line. That doesn’t mean the discovery is minor, but rather that the creative leeway within Rockstar North in 2007 allowed a team to test out survival horror mechanics during development. Other divergences. The build includes other substantial differences from the final game. The silenced pistol is in this version’s arsenal, along with other unfinished weapons and a notable number of incomplete animations and unreplaced audio markers, as is the case with any half-developed game. The models of some NPCs are different from the final ones, and the character of Michelle, the FIB informant who appears as Niko Bellic’s early romantic interest, has a look here that forum users describe as strangely disturbing. What may be most surprising to any fan of the game is that about half of the radio stations sound completely different. ‘GTA IV’ has one of the most elaborate soundtracks in the saga, with dozens of real music licenses distributed on thematic stations. That half of that content changed between November 2007 and the April 2008 release says a lot about the licensing negotiation process in the final phases of development. What does Rockstar do? After everything that happened, Rockstar Games and Take-Two have not issued public statements. Although companies have a reputation for relentlessly pursuing leaks, the author of this leak purchased the console legally. In any case, he has put the devkit up for sale on eBay for £800. It’s not too much for material of such magnitude, but the truth is that, once on the Internet, access to these secrets is universal. In Xataka | The best video games of 2026 and the most interesting ones to come

Someone believed that ‘GTA Vice City’ could be played for free in the browser without consequences. Take-Two has reacted firmly

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Whoever played ‘Grand Theft Auto: Vice City‘ You probably remember well that it was not exactly a light game for its time. It was published in 2002 on PlayStation 2 and later came to Xbox and PC in 2003. In those years, installing it and making it work was part of the ritual with requirements that not everyone could meet. That is why it is striking that, more than two decades later, that same title appears running directly in a browser, without installations or disks. The question is inevitable: why now and with what implications. The response has come in the form of a cease and desist request directed at DOS Zone. The notice, that the platform itself has made publicmaintains that the website is “hosting and promoting a browser-based project.” The document demands that the game and any associated functionality be removed, and warns that if this is not done, the company reserves the right to take additional legal action. Where preservation ends and the legal problem begins A cease and desist request is not yet a demand, but rather a notice with clear consequences. Its objective is to force the removal of content that the rights holder considers infringing, leaving a formal record of the claim. From that moment on, the designated platform usually faces a clear decision: comply or assume the risk of the conflict escalating. The letter itself anticipates possible subsequent steps, such as communications to the accommodation provider or legal action if the request is not met. In this case, the notice has not been managed through direct communication between editor and platform, but through EBRANDspecialized in digital surveillance and content removals. This model is common in large catalogs, where the detection and management of potential violations is outsourced to dedicated teams. EBRAND acts as a technical and legal intermediary, in charge of documenting the case and conveying the demands of the rights holder, without publicly assessing the context of the affected project. DOS Zone, for its part, is presented as a project driven by video game enthusiasts with a stated objective of preservation and accessibility. In its own texts, the team emphasizes that it does not obtain financial benefits, does not display advertising and does not monetize access to the games it hosts. It also claims to reject any form of illegal distribution and ensures to operate within the legal frameworks it considers applicable. As part of this positioning, the platform maintains that it is willing to remove content immediately upon official request and to cooperate with rights holders. Screenshot of DOS Zone The version of Vice City accessible from the browser allowed you to start games with local saves and offered, optionally, saves in the cloud through the js-dos platform to continue the session on different devices. Access was limited in demo form, with progress blocked after the first story point at the Ocean View Hotel. To go further, the system required the user to upload an original game file, which was verified to match the commercial assets. The claim comes from Take-Two and is part of a broader debate about access and preservation, where the concept of “abandonware” is often invoked. However, that term has no legal validity: The fact that a work stops being sold or changes format does not extinguish its copyright. In the case of ‘Vice City’, the validity of the copyright in USA extends until 2097regardless of the channel through which you try to access the game. In this specific case, furthermore, the abandonment argument does not even hold up in practical terms. Take-Two continues to sell Vice City and also versions such as ‘Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – The Definitive Edition’ on multiple platforms. Its owners continue to exploit it commercially more than twenty years after its original release. This context reinforces the publisher’s position against any unauthorized execution and helps to understand why the case does not go unnoticed, even in an ecosystem where other similar projects manage to survive without friction. Images | Rockstar Games/Take-Two | DOS Zone Screenshot In Xataka | I can turn on, control and play my PC from anywhere in the world: three ingredients that make it possible

We already have fake GTA VI videos circulating on the internet and made with AI. The implications are more serious than it seems

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The strange thing is not that it happened. The strange thing is that it hasn’t happened before: the news that we would have to wait a full year (and not the few months that were planned) to enjoy ‘GTA VI‘ fell like a bucket of cold water on the fans. And after all the pertinent guesses, came the inevitable string of fake trailers made with AI. Despair. The desire for the most anticipated game in recent years has resulted in fake trailers, a subgenre that has always existed, but since the appearance of AI is reaching spectacular levels of verisimilitude. The channel specialized in this type of content Teaser Universe published a fake “final trailer” for the game that It already exceeds 600,000 viewsand which was followed by an additional one that had less impact. With the complicity of Google. As Kotaku tells itthe merit of the scope is not only the verisimilitude of the video (a trained eye can detect that That trailer for ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ is fakebut with digital video game content and animated images things get complicated), but from Google. The search engine spread the video as if it were official Rockstar Games content, although everything was done with AI, as its own creator recognized. In this way (remember that we are not just talking about the Google search engine, but about YouTube’s own algorithm, which also recommends it), what should be an anecdote becomes a viral phenomenon… and disinformative. Made to confuse. As much as the video includes in its description that it is made with AI, there are other elements of it that are somewhat more confusing. For example, the title “Grand Theft Auto VI – Final Trailer (2026) Rockstar Games”, a name calculated to be confused with official material. He timing It was also intentionally confusing: the video circulated just after the announcement of the postponement of ‘GTA VI’ until November 2026, a time when players were willing to consume any content linked to ‘GTA’, although in places such as the comments of the video itself The anger at the deception was evident. The false button of the twerk. It is just one more example of how easy it is to manipulate algorithms and search engines using AI, and not the first related to ‘GTA VI’. This summer, YouTuber Jeffrey Phillips launched a deliberate disinformation campaign publishing on Reddit and TikTok that the Rockstar game would incorporate a button to do twerking. Phillips even created a fraudulent subreddit, r/TrueFactsOnlyz, whose description would theoretically help the AI ​​with its search summaries. The result exceeded his expectations: Google AI Overview ended up literally quoting the Reddit comments that the Youtuber himself had writtenand referred to these comments as if they were speculations from real players. When someone asked him for proof on Reddit, he responded that Rockstar had called him personally. It was enough for Google’s AI, and it became clear that Google prioritizes content from Reddit without bothering to give it human oversight, allowing malicious lies like this (even if it was an experiment) to contaminate searches. A systemic problem. All these cases linked to ‘GTA VI’ are not isolated anomalies, but symptoms of a structural failure on YouTube. Mozilla published in 2021 an investigation which revealed data that 71% of the problematic videos reported by volunteers had been directly suggested to them by the recommendation algorithm, not actively searched for. And because of these suggestions, these questionable content recorded 70% more daily views than other videos. The proliferation of the so-called massive content generated by artificial intelligence aggravates the problem. have been identified channels that have accumulated almost 500 million views using AI tools exclusively. NBCNews uncovered a network of channels spreading hoaxes about famous African Americans with deepfakessome of them commercial ads that generated income for both the creators and YouTube. That is to say, as Jonathan Albright commented on Mediumthe technological paradox is in sight: YouTube is capable of instantly detecting songs protected by copyrightbut it does not identify texts from journalistic articles read with synthetic voices or images extracted from other websites. A real chaos. In Xataka | I have tried Gemini Dynamic View: here begins the era of visual and interactive AI that you will not want to stop using

‘GTA 6’ is the most anticipated game, but it is not clear if it is so untouchable as to emerge unscathed from the continuous delays

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Rockstar has dropped a new bomb that, like before in the pastmakes the video game industry shake: GTA VI will not arrive in spring 2026 as planned. The most anticipated game of the decade is delayed until November 19, 2026, adding six more months to the wait. That is, one year from this moment. Reactions of discontent from fans have not been long in coming, but beyond the digital noise, an uncomfortable question arises: can Rockstar afford these continuous delays without its reputation, its finances or its dominant position being affected? Are they really that untouchable? Keep winning. Rockstar continues to have a privileged position. Take-Two Interactive, its parent company, reported in November 2024 about net profits of $1.96 billionits best fiscal second quarter in history. The reason? A video game released in 2013 that continues to sell as if it were a novelty: ‘GTA V’ has exceeded 220 million copies soldconsolidating itself as the second best-selling video game of all time, only behind Minecraft. The entire saga has sold more than 425 million units. They are not simple numbers. These monstrous sales are the only excuse Rockstar needs to operate under its own rules. While other studios live game by game, Rockstar swims in a pool of money generated by a game that is more than a decade old. And it goes further: ‘GTA Online’, the multiplayer component of GTA V, does not stop giving benefits with constant updates and microtransactions. This economic reality confirms that Rockstar does not need to rush: there are no investors or producers demanding immediate results, and they can take all the time in the world. Some financial cracks. However, if we closely examine this invulnerability we can find some flaws. The stock market has sent alarm signals with each delay: Take-Two shares have fallen up to 18% after the announcement of the last delay to November 2026, before stabilizing. In the first delay to May 2026, shares fell 10%going from $235.17 to approximately $211 – billions of dollars in market value evaporating in minutes. Problems in the offices. And to this is added that last week we learned that the studio had laid off between 30 and 40 employees in its offices in the United Kingdom and Canada. The IWGB union accused the company of union bustingdescribing an increasingly tense work environment. The team, after so much delay, is working under monumental pressure. The news of these layoffs comes at a critical time in development. Are they a symptom of a management that, despite its financial muscle, is beginning to show cracks in its work model? Delays have a human cost in the form of tyrannical days and burned out professionals, not very pleasant details that have already appeared in the past in Rockstar’s history. The earthquake. Each new delay is like a very heavy stone falling into a peaceful lake and generating shock waves that affect very distant launches. For example, games like ‘The Elder Scrolls VI’, ‘Fable’, the next ‘Assassin’s Creed’ or the new ‘Mass Effect’ still do not have a release date, all waiting for Rockstar to make a move, and now they find themselves with a dilemma: the first half of the year was better for them, which until today was a forbidden zone. Now what: bring the launch forward a few months or go to 2027? (Remember that we are not talking here about calendar whims, but rather possible losses of millions of dollars). This is the total absorption power of the Rockstar game market. Untouchable, but not invulnerable. This new delay leaves Rockstar in a peculiar position: no one doubts that ‘GTA VI’ is going to be a successbut date cancellation after date cancellation, the image of the game and the company itself are eroding. If we add to that that we are experiencing turbulent times in the industry, where the exorbitant budgets and the pace of hardware releases are absolutely broken, we can come to a conclusion: Rockstar and its ‘GTA’ are untouchable, but to what extent can they allow themselves to continue going indefinitely free of the industry and the public? In Xataka | The ghost of video games at 100 euros is closer than ever. And the owners of ‘GTA VI’ know it

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