Waiting To Pre-Order GTA 6? An Insider Says You May Have To Wait Until August

Rockstar fans had May 18 circled after a Best Buy leak, but an insider is urging patience, saying the GTA 6 marketing push is still months away.

An email from Best Buy sent the GTA 6 fanbase into overdrive.

Source : Rockstar Games

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Key points generated by AI, verified by newsroom

• Best Buy email suggested GTA 6 pre-orders opening May 18.
• Insider claims May 18 or trailer release unlikely.
• Marketing push may realistically begin July or August.

GTA 6 Leaks: The past week has been a significant one for Grand Theft Auto 6 fans. A Best Buy email appeared to confirm that pre-orders for the game would open on May 18, sending the community into a frenzy. After months of waiting for a third trailer and an official price reveal, fans had been building themselves up for what many hoped would be a landmark Monday. 

Now, fresh claims from a gaming insider are throwing cold water on those expectations, and the community is once again divided over what to actually believe.

What Did The Best Buy Email Say About GTA 6 Pre-Orders?

The Best Buy email pointed to May 18 as the date pre-orders for GTA 6 would go live, and it was enough to get the fanbase buzzing. Insider Gaming confirmed the email itself was legitimate, meaning the debate now centres on whether the date listed was simply incorrect rather than made up entirely. That distinction matters because it shifts the conversation from whether the leak was real to whether the information inside it can be trusted.

On the GTA 6 subreddit, user JiN8888V walked back earlier optimism about pre-orders going live, while others pushed back strongly. Tank-ToP_Master made a straightforward case that waiting until August to begin the main marketing push would leave Rockstar with very little time to build momentum before such a massive release.

Will GTA 6 Pre-Orders Actually Open On May 18?

In the latest episode of the Insider Gaming podcast on YouTube, insider Tom Henderson suggested that expectations around pre-orders and a trailer landing on Monday could be mistaken, pointing instead to July or August as a more realistic window for GTA 6 marketing to pick up. CristianPerlado, however, laid out a record of Henderson's previous inaccuracies on GTA and Rockstar-related topics, arguing he is not the most reliable voice on this subject.

Jason Schreier, widely considered one of the more dependable reporters in games journalism, has not weighed in on the leak despite recently debunking other gaming rumours, including a Rocksteady Batman Beyond game. Take-Two stock has risen since the Best Buy email surfaced. The answer, either way, is now just hours away.

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