How to get your PS5 or Xbox ready for GTA 6

GTA 6 arrives on 19 November 2026, with digital pre-load from 12 November. That gives you about three months, and on an Ethiopian connection three months is roughly the right amount of preparation. Work through this in order.

1. Check your console is actually supported

This is first because it is the one that costs money to get wrong. GTA 6 is a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S release. That includes the PS5 Slim, the PS5 Digital Edition and the PS5 Pro, and both the Series X and the smaller Series S.

It does not include the PlayStation 4 or the Xbox One. There is no last-generation version. If you are still on a PS4 — and plenty of people here are, because it was the sensible buy for years — no amount of preparation changes that, and you should factor a console into the cost before you pre-order anything.

2. Clear the space now, not in November

Rockstar has not published the install size, so anyone quoting you an exact figure in gigabytes is guessing. What we can say is that Rockstar's last release was around 100GB and open-world games have not got smaller since.

Treat it as a big number and clear space now:

• Delete games you have finished. They stay in your library and re-download later.
• On a Series S in particular, space is the constraint — it ships with well under half the usable storage of a Series X.
• If you are buying extra storage, buy it before November. An expansion card or an internal NVMe drive is far easier to fit and format on a quiet afternoon than on launch morning.

3. Pre-load is the point of pre-ordering here

Pre-load opens on 12 November. Downloading 100GB is a different exercise in Addis than it is in London: on a connection managing 5 Mbps, that is comfortably over a day of downloading, and that assumes it does not drop.

Start it the hour it unlocks, leave the console in rest mode with automatic downloads enabled, and check on it. If you wait until the 19th you will spend release day watching a progress bar while the rest of the internet does the same thing to the same servers.

4. Do you need PlayStation Plus or Game Pass?

For the single-player game, no. You can buy GTA 6 and play the story with no subscription at all.

You need one for online multiplayer — PlayStation Plus on PS5, Xbox Game Pass Core or Ultimate on Xbox. If GTA Online is the reason you are buying, budget for that as an ongoing cost rather than a one-off. We set both up, and it is worth waiting until nearer launch so you are not paying for months you spend waiting.

One thing to be clear about: GTA 6 will not be free on Game Pass at launch. It is a Rockstar release, not a Microsoft one.

5. Buy on the account you actually play on

A digital purchase is tied to the store account that bought it. If you play on one PSN or Xbox account and someone buys the game on another, you get to share a console rather than a game. Decide which account is yours before you order — it is far easier than moving it afterwards.

6. Sorry, PC players

There is no PC version at launch and no announced date for one. Rockstar's pattern has been to bring the PC release out well over a year after the consoles, and until they say otherwise that is the honest expectation. Nobody can sell you a PC pre-order for a product that does not exist, and if someone offers you one, that tells you what you need to know about them.

Where we come in

Ethiopian cards cannot settle a dollar store charge, so if you want the pre-order on your own account, that is what we handle. Everything on the list above you can do yourself for nothing, and you should.

Written by the Bezuale Solutions team in Addis Ababa. Questions? Message us on Telegram.