Personally, I'd say 15 to 20 million. We're all pretty much in agreement. It will depend on whether there's a price increase and also on the release of GTA 6. As for the competition, Xbox is finished, at least for this generation. I don't see how the Xbox Series could hinder the PS5 in terms of sales, especially since all the Xbox exclusives for 2026 are also coming to PS5. And Nintendo isn't a direct competitor to PlayStation. At least not for the moment. If everything goes right for PlayStation in 2026, the PS5, with the release of a huge number of third-party games, PlayStation exclusives, plus Xbox games, a big November with GTA 6, plus Black Friday, could easily reach 20 million.

1. GTA today is MANY times more popular than RDR was in 2018. RDR1 sold around 15 million copies by 2018 across all platforms (8 million~ copies less than God of War or Spider-Man on PS4 alone). RDR2, like GTA5, grew slowly and organically.

2. PS4 faced some actual competition from Xbox. Until the PC version is released, 90% of GTA6's system selling effect may go to PS5.

3. Sony didn't have a large playerbase stuck with PS3. GTA6 should transition millions of PS4 players as well as former players who stopped playing the game because it's too old. Unlike PS3, PS4 remains big with a large number of players who didn't yet upgrade. It's safe to say that GTA6 will be a good reason for many of them to finally upgrade.

4. Unlike PS4, PS5 has room for effective pricedrops. Though unfortunately the prices kept climbing outside temporary deals, and the coming days may be worse. A major difference between PS5 and older consoles is that PS5 didn't have a normal price trajectory (and yet it kept up with the PS4). If prices miraculously start dropping, another past trend/pattern would be broken, and we could see PS5 sales increase year on year, reversing the decline for a year. GTA6 would've guaranteed it.

5. GTA6 will have a long term impact. Sales year on year will of course decline. But without the game, the deline would have been greater.

6. Finally, we don't even know yet how long this generation is going to last. The longer it is, the more consoles GTA6 will sell. It's just common sense.

1. That's why I said I still expect it to cause a significant boost the period it comes out. It resulting in an extra million PS5's sold this holiday would already be a big deal. I'm saying that instead of selling only like 5m this November+December without it it could do 6m instead.

2. That is true but there being an Xbox version still matters a lot though since it means current owners won't need to buy a PS5 for it.

3. A big question is how big that playerbase will still be by November, same goes for how many people are still playing GTA 5 on the PS4 or are even interested in GTA in general. I imagine that the average person still using the PS4 this late is just not gonna bother ever getting a PS5 which is why I don't think the COD this year not coming to PS4 and Xbox One is gonna matter since BO7 sold barely anything on those systems. Many will switch platforms, be less interested in video games compared to when they got a PS4 or wait for a PS6 instead.

4. Considering what's going on with RAM it appears likely that the PS5 will be more expensive next year than it is right now but sure a miraculous price drop would help. That old school price trajectory is dead it seems though.

5. I don't think the difference would be that much, maybe a somewhat smaller decline at most but the overall trajectory wouldn't be changed. To be more clear by long term boost I mean the PS5's trajectory getting notably shifted.

6. I expect 2028 for the PS6 so expect it to start getting talked about next year. If someone doesn't bother getting a PS5 this year for GTA 6 they're probably not gonna bother when the next console isn't that far off. Though current market conditions do make things murky so 2028 isn't a sure thing.

One thing that I could see that would cut the GTA effect for the PS5 would be if the next xbox and PS6 get announced this year with an early 2027 release date, and at the same time GTA gets delayed to be a launch title for the new consoles.
Even if it releases on both gens. I could see the main boost of GTA going to the next gen consoles instead.

If they're still actively using the PS4 I don't think there's reason to doubt that many (a majority - 50%+) will update at some point. Some may get a Switch 2, others a PC or use an existing laptop but I think there's still a heathy number who are waiting to get a PS5 and want to stay in the console space (hence them still playing PS4)

I think people overestimate how compelling the current gen has been for a lot of gamers. No exclusive COD, no exclusive GOW, No exclusive Naughty Dog game, No exclusive guerilla game/Horizon, Not even an exclusive Resident Evil thus far... I could go on. Probably the biggest game so far has been Hogwarts for the 3months it wasn't on PS4/Xbox and even then it was already announced for those platforms, so plenty would of waited.

Using UK data as reference "One industry summary noted PS5 sales were up around five-times year-on-year in February 2023 when the game was the best-selling title — suggesting strong hardware movement in the same window". Stock improvements also helped with this. But there's a still a lot that compelling software can do in shifting people over.

Of course I think the majority has shifted to current gen, but even if GTA was to activate 2-3 % of gamers holding off for the right time, that can still be several million extra sales units.

I actually wanted to pull COD UK sales data to look at the split but I could only find Fifa 26:

Fifa 26: PS5 54%, Switch 20%, PS4 15%, Switch 2 7% (this is last week in physical sales)

15% doesn't sound like a lot but if 15% of GTA6 launch week audience is on last gen, that'd equate to at least 1.5-2m users. Enough to really shift a holiday sales period.

Also the impact of Animal Crossing comes to mind. My flatmate bought a Switch at it's release and only like 2 games since 2020 lol.

Plenty of gamers are extremely casual and don't really invest much in the space. They could comfortably go a generation without investing in gaming and their participation is just tied to trends, curiosity, boredom etc. Something as hyped as GTA could get people buying a PS5 just so they can be part of the conversation. All just to say I don't think we should underestimate it's potential impact. (Nor Sonys willingness to take a loss that on hardware that holiday to get people into their ecosystem)

Hard to say until we know whether there will be a price increase and how much. If price stays the same I would expect something like a 1-2M decrease each year until the PS6 launches. A slow but steady decline.

There will still be some upgrading of course, it's just doubtful to me that most of the remaining users will buy a PS5 this late in its life when its even more expensive than it used to be cause at least some will have been waiting for price drops that haven't happened. For the compelling software part the thing is that this late in the life-span new games don't boost hardware sales nearly as much as games do earlier on cause of factors like saturation.

In the UK PS5 was 70% of BO6 physical sales at launch while PS4 was only 4% and the total was 59% lower than the PS4 sales for MWIII so the discrepancy will presumably have been even bigger last year for BO7. The vast, vast majority of COD console players will already have a current gen console as a result so the boost the 2026 COD has will be much smaller than the one Infinite Warfare had back in 2016. 

For the 15% example it's important to keep in mind that a chunk of those people wouldn't bother getting a PS5 cause many won't want or even be able to get a console that costs a few hundred and a portion of the rest will get a PS5 this year before that happens reducing the potential pool of buyers by then. Now GTA 6 will still have an impact of course, I just expect closer to an extra 1m this holiday period than that much since that would still be a big deal.