One of the biggest banks in the world, Bank of America, said in a new investor note that it believes Take-Two should price GTA 6 at $80 to help drive prices higher across the industry. This is happening against a backdrop where games are getting more and more expensive to make.
The bank attended the recent iicon event in Las Vegas, where Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick discussed GTA 6’s pricing at a high level, and said in its note that GTA 6 should be the game that kicks off a new trend of $80 games across the board. Omar Dessouky, the Bank of America securities stock analyst who wrote the note, said he heard from attendees at the event that the video game business is struggling.
He said the industry overall would struggle to sell games for $80 if one of the most anticipated games ever–GTA 6–comes out at $70. And given that, he said, “We think it’s in Take-Two’s self-interest, as a publisher and partner to many developers, to raise the price point for the entire industry,” according to Seeking Alpha.
Take-Two was among the first to hike prices from $60 to $70, with the company pricing NBA 2K21 at $70 back in 2020, citing development budgets that have increased by as much as 300% in the past 10 years. The company later said it saw “no pushback” to the new $70 price being the new price for major releases at Take-Two and many other publishers.
Nintendo, for its part, sells Mario Kart World for $80, but early adopters essentially got the game cheaper if they bought the $500 Mario Kart World bundle that included the $450 system and the game. That bundle has since been discontinued, however.
Every game is priced differently, even within the same publisher, as Take-Two launched Mafia: The Old Country for $50–to great success–and Nintendo doesn’t charge $80 for any game beside Mario Kart World.
During his speech at iicon, Zelnick said major new releases have actually come down in price over the years when you consider how inflation has affected pretty much everything else you buy these days. Games have held steady in the $60-$70 range for 10 years, and that “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Zelnick said, with many theorizing that what Zelnick meant here was that GTA 6 could be priced higher.
That remains to be seen, but experts have said games not going up in price is causing major issues for the AAA game market. No significant increases help explain why publishers push DLC and microtransactions so much to help cover the costs of ballooning budgets, according to experts and industry veterans.
Data shows that people are ready and willing to pay $80 or more for games. Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics said even in challenging economic times, people will spend money on what they want the most, including video games. “The rising prices won’t necessarily reduce spending. The market will bear it.”
With the new forecast of an $80 GTA 6, Bank of America said it’s raising its price target on Take-Two stock to $320. It’s currently trading at around $216.
GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Fans have been waiting a long, long time for it, as it was originally set to launch in Fall 2025 before being delayed to May 2026 and then to November. It’s been 13 years since GTA 5, though GTA Online has received regular updates over the years.