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PaperclipPerfector  17hr ago (text post)   742 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 26, 2026

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I’ve become a (possibly very bad) scalper.

Console prices are shooting up. Microsoft just increased the Series X/S’s price by like $150 across the board. Sony increased the PlayStation’s price by a similar amount recently.

There’s chatter that retailers are struggling to get stock for the anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI boom, which is going to sell a ton of consoles to people who never upgraded from last gen because they had no need to (I looked this up, and the *first current-gen-only Call of Duty is this year; the first current gen only EAFC game is also this year).

I had an Xbox for a while, but it broke, and I had a PS5 but it was lost / possibly stolen in an apartment move. GTA6 isn’t on PC, so I need one of them. So I went to a physical store about an hour ago with a minor (like 10%) discount on the window price for PS5s and I thought, on a whim, that I’d buy out the 4 other units and keep them all in a box until November, then sell them.

I will report back with my win or loss.

I can’t help but watch the conventional wisdom on GTA6 and shake my head.

  • GTA6 will sell more than any other game in history
  • Rockstar can charge whatever they want and people will pay it
  • There is the huge crowd of casuals who only play GTA and they’re all going to buy it
  • We won’t have enough PS5s to meet the demand
  • There are millions of people ready to spend $700 to play gta
  • The most hyped game off all time.

This reminds me of the 2016 “Hilary will win” crowd. People just repeating conventional wisdom and confusing that for analysis

In your case, it’s probably not a bad move given your points on COD and FC.

But as far as GTA goes, I fully expect it to not meet expectations for impact on gaming or sales. 13 years since its last release is more than enough for it to be out of the general zeitgeist. All of the original creators are long gone. Rockstar announced they’ve excised the juvenile and frat house humor. And it was in peak development during the years where developer trends were at their worst - and we are now fully seeing the ramifications of those trends.

I just don’t think it’s culturally relevant to anyone under 20 years old. I played my first Grand Theft Auto as a PC CD-ROM demo from PC Gamer (I think). I played the hell out of that game with WinAmp in the background and Sublime MP3s playing music. GTA3 was every bit of the revelation people say. And there was continuity for nearly 20 years between Grand Theft Auto and GTAV. 6 will just not hit that same way. For a lot of reasons.

Just my opinion though. I can’t wait to see what happens.

Rockstar announced they’ve excised the juvenile and frat house humor.

Red Dead 2 excised this first (the first game still had a lot of it, as did Bully and to some extent even Max Payne 3) and it was much better for it.

I definitely wouldn't say the first RDR had a lot of juvenile humor, or even any that I can think of. Unlike GTA, RDR was never meant to be satire.

In your memory no, but I played it again a few months ago on the Switch and it did, most of the missions are actually classic GTA humor/goofiness, even if the ‘plot’ isn’t and there are moments of greater depth - although the same was true for GTAIV which people remember as a ‘serious story’ even though probably at least half was classic GTA.

Still, I think it’s true that 5 aged worse than any of them, and even at its release was very dumb. Vice City still has a lot of great jokes, gags, clever innuendo, and 4 is a great time capsule to 2006-2009 era New York City. I don’t remember the plot to 5 at all, it’s just a bunch of barely related dumb shit that involves a few heists and some funny moments. I remember the torture scene caused some controversy. I remember the choice at the end, I remember the guy from the 4 DLC getting killed.

I also played it a few months ago, so my memory is as fresh as yours is. I completely disagree that the game was full of GTA style goofiness.

To me, Armadillo is very goofy and Mexico has plenty of goofiness. Even Blackwater does although it’s toned down considerably. The last third of the game is played broadly straight. Stuff like the medicine man fraudster and a lot of the interactions with the factions in Mexico are pure GTA and played for laughs.

I'll give you West Dickens as a comic relief character (though in fairness RDR2 has those as well), but I can't for the life of me see how you would say anything else in Armadillo or Mexico is played for laughs. None of that stuff struck me as trying to be funny.

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