Which console to buy for GTA 6, now that all of them cost more

The console you buy to play GTA 6 costs more than it did a year ago. Microsoft has raised Xbox prices three times in thirteen months. Sony has raised PS5 prices twice. And the version of the PS5 that most people assume is the cheap one now ships with less storage than it used to.

None of that is Rockstar’s doing. All of it changes what you should buy.

What everything costs right now

Prices as of late August 2026, US recommended retail. They have moved repeatedly this year, so treat these as a starting point rather than a guarantee.

Console	Price	Storage
PS5 Pro	$899.99	2 TB
PS5 (disc)	$649.99	1 TB
PS5 Digital	$599.99	825 GB
Xbox Series X (disc)	$799.99	1 TB
Xbox Series X Digital	$749.99	1 TB

The Xbox Series X 2 TB Galaxy Black edition was discontinued rather than repriced, so 1 TB is now the top storage tier Microsoft sells.

The frame rate question, answered honestly

This is the thing people actually want to know, and most buying guides dodge it.

Rockstar has not announced a frame rate target for any platform. Sony has confirmed a PS5 Pro Enhanced tag in the PlayStation Store and said nothing about what it delivers.

Digital Foundry’s read on the two trailers is that a 30fps fidelity mode is close to guaranteed, and that 60fps is unlikely even on PS5 Pro — because the bottleneck is the CPU rather than the GPU, and the Pro’s improvements are mostly on the GPU side. Their more realistic expectation for the Pro is a 40fps mode aimed at 120Hz displays.

Both trailers were rendered at 30fps with ray-traced global illumination doing all the lighting work.

So: buying a PS5 Pro in the hope of locked 60fps in GTA 6 is buying on an assumption nobody has confirmed, and which the most credible technical analysis in the industry expects to be wrong.

Check current PS5 Pro pricing

Is the Pro worth $250 more

Against the base PS5 with a disc drive, the Pro costs an extra $250. Against the Digital Edition, $300.

What that money reliably buys: higher resolution or better image stability at the same frame rate, more consistent performance in demanding scenes, and 2 TB of storage instead of 1 TB or 825 GB.

What it does not reliably buy: double the frame rate.

If you already own a PS5 and are considering the upgrade purely for GTA 6, the honest answer is to wait until Rockstar publishes performance modes. That information will arrive before launch, and $900 is a lot to spend on an inference.

If you own nothing and are buying a console specifically for this game, the calculation is different — the Pro’s extra terabyte alone is worth something once you see the install size discussion below.

The disc drive question, which GTA 6 makes strange

Normally the advice is simple: pay the extra for a disc drive if you want to buy used games or keep physical copies.

GTA 6 breaks that logic. The physical edition is a download code in a box with no disc inside. Take-Two has said it has no plans for a disc release after November 19.

For this game specifically, the disc drive is worth nothing. You cannot buy a used copy, you cannot lend it, and the physical edition you can buy is a piece of cardboard with a code printed on it.

That does not mean skip the disc drive — it means do not let GTA 6 be the reason you pay for one. Decide based on every other game you plan to own.

Storage, and the trap in the cheap PS5

The PS5 Digital Edition dropped from 1 TB to 825 GB in the US while keeping its price. After the system reserves its share, real usable space is meaningfully less than the number on the box.

Rockstar has not published GTA 6’s install size. It typically publishes that figure four to eight weeks before release, so expect it in September or October. Press estimates run 150–200 GB plus a day-one patch. For comparison, Red Dead Redemption 2 is around 150 GB and GTA V around 95 GB.

On an 825 GB console that already holds Call of Duty and a couple of other large games, GTA 6 will not fit without deleting something.

This is the single most likely unplanned expense of launch week, and it is the reason the storage question deserves its own decision rather than an afterthought.

Compatible PS5 storage drives

PlayStation or Xbox

GTA 6 launches on both, on the same day, from the same build pipeline. There is no announced exclusive content on either side.

The practical differences:

Sony has said GTA 6 uses the PS5 SSD for near-instant loading in a joint post with Rockstar, and the game carries a Plays Best On PlayStation 5 badge on Rockstar’s site. That is marketing language rather than a technical claim, and no figures were attached.

Xbox Series X costs $799.99 against the PS5’s $649.99, which is $150 more for hardware in broadly the same performance class.

If you have no existing library and no friends on either platform, PlayStation is the cheaper entry to this specific game.

Check current Xbox Series X pricing

What we would actually buy

Already own a PS5 or Series X: buy nothing. Wait for Rockstar’s performance modes, and put the money toward storage instead.

Buying a console for GTA 6 on a budget: PS5 Digital at $599.99, and budget for a drive. The 825 GB will not last.

Buying without a budget ceiling: PS5 Pro at $899.99. Not for 60fps, which probably is not coming, but for image quality and the 2 TB that removes the storage problem entirely.

Already own a Series X: stay there. The $150 premium over PlayStation is already spent, and nothing announced makes the PlayStation version better.

What would change this advice

Rockstar publishing performance modes. If a 60fps mode appears on PS5 Pro, the upgrade case strengthens considerably.

Rockstar publishing the install size. If it lands closer to 200 GB than 150 GB, the 825 GB Digital Edition stops being a reasonable starting point without a drive purchased alongside it.

Another price change. Two Sony increases and three from Microsoft in thirteen months make a fourth unremarkable.

We update this page when any of those happen, with the date of the change marked.