GTA 6 piracy "a fact of life," says Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick

With Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6) less than two weeks from its November 19, 2026, release and the PS5 jailbreak scene unusually active, Take-Two chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick has said piracy will remain an issue for the company. Speaking at The Wall Street Journal's WSJ Tech: California conference, he said Take-Two would respond with legal and technical measures if piracy becomes a problem.

Zelnick calls piracy "a fact of life"

Zelnick called piracy "a fact of life" but argued that file sizes, complexity, and the need to connect to Take-Two's servers make it less of an issue for games than for film or music. He said Take-Two is prepared to take legal and technical action if piracy becomes a serious problem. Separately, PlayStation Network listings reportedly show GTA 6 requiring PS5 firmware 14.22, which would keep the game off consoles running the public Relapse jailbreak, which tops out at firmware 13.60. Rockstar has also moved digital preloads to November 10 and says the download will require up to 212 GB.

Zelnick was speaking onstage in Napa on November 4. Asked about Roblox clones of Take-Two's games, he steered the conversation toward piracy. Joking that he worries about everything despite his laid-back manner, he said:

"Piracy is a fact of life. I've been in every entertainment business there is, and when I was in the movie business, we figured 10-20% at any given time. In the record business, because I was in the record business from 1994 to 2000, by the mid 2000s, I would argue that 80% of that market was pirated; now that's way back down again."

He added that file sizes and complexity make piracy less of an issue in games than in other entertainment, and noted that Take-Two's games require a connection to its servers for a good experience, which would leave pirates needing to run competing servers of their own. Even so, he stopped short of dismissing the problem:

"It's not been a non-issue. And in the event that it turns into an issue, we address it the same way every other business does, which is with legal work, and then with technical work, and we'll have to do both."

Zelnick did not mention jailbreaks or name any platforms, and neither Take-Two nor Rockstar has said what anti-piracy protections GTA 6 will use at launch. The game also ships without a disc: boxed copies include a digital download code.

GTA 6 reportedly requires PS5 firmware 14.22

According to PlayStation Network database listings tracked by the PlayStation Game Size account, GTA 6's minimum PS5 firmware requirement has moved from 14.10 to 14.22. Version 14.10 was the figure reported in early October, while 14.22 is a security-only update Sony released on November 2. Neither Rockstar nor Sony has confirmed the requirement, and Sony has not said whether its recent updates target jailbreaks.

If the requirement holds, anyone keeping a PS5 on older firmware to preserve a jailbreak would have to update, giving up the jailbreak, before GTA 6 would run.

Where the PS5 jailbreak scene stands

The public Relapse exploit jailbreaks PS5 and PS5 Pro consoles on firmware 7.00 through 13.60, though it is tethered and must be rerun after every restart. Sony's firmware 14.00, released in September, falls outside its range. Developer Gezine has since shown what appears to be a kernel exploit on firmware 14.10, though the developer said the old method of dumping game data no longer seems to work. A separate kernel exploit called Prolapse, announced in late October for firmware 14.00 and 14.10, has not been publicly released. With Sony having since shipped firmware 14.20 and 14.22, a launch-day crack on PS5 looks unlikely, though not impossible.

On PC, the question is further off. GTA 6 launches on consoles only, and Rockstar has not announced a PC version.

Sensor Tower estimates 7.71 million pre-orders

According to Sensor Tower's GTA 6 sales tracker, updated on November 3, the game has an estimated 7.71 million digital pre-orders worth about $751 million. PS5 accounts for 74%, or about 5.74 million copies and $559 million, while Xbox Series X|S accounts for 26%, or about 1.97 million copies and $192 million. These are third-party estimates that exclude boxed copies, and Rockstar and Take-Two have not confirmed any pre-order figures.

Digital preloads move up to November 10

Rockstar has moved digital preloads for GTA 6 forward from November 12 to Tuesday, November 10. On PS5, preloading begins at midnight local time. On Xbox Series X|S, it begins globally at 12 a.m. GMT (7 p.m. ET; 4 p.m. PT) on November 9 in North America. Rockstar says the preload needs up to 212 GB of free space, depending on the device. Boxed editions, which contain a download code, still arrive on November 12. The game unlocks on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.