I Went to FNAC to Buy GTA 6 Today

I've been living in Portugal for about a decade now, and for the most part, the country only makes global headlines because of football, summer wildfires, or the ridiculous housing costs in Lisbon. As I sipped my morning coffee (Delta Lote Chávena, there's beauty in simplicity), however, I saw Portugal in the middle of the gaming industry's most pressing question: how much is GTA 6 going to cost?

An eagle-eyed spotter at Resetera saw four inventory codes (SKU) go up on the Portuguese FNAC site for a mysterious game, codename RS, that was launching on November 19, 2026. Most importantly, to many, this was the first concrete indication of how much GTA 6 would cost.

According to the listings, the base game ('RS1') will cost €89.99. Other special editions will set you back from €119.99 to €199.99. Traditionally, prices in the Eurozone take the numbers in USD and add another ten for good measure. In other words, this would mean a $79.99 base game. If true, GTA 6 will take AAA prices to new heights, potentially opening the doors for other publishers to follow suit.

As soon as I confirmed the listing as real, I was on my way to the nearest FNAC store, a mere 15 minutes away. While I typically buy appliances from Worten, it is FNAC that has the gaming monopoly in my household. Game pre-orders, consoles, and even my work laptop came from there. Those were 'boring' old sales, however, the kind where the product was supposed to be available.

The Race Between Leakers, FNAC, and Rockstar

On a regular day, most publishers and their PR teams don't take leaks too lightly. Marketing campaigns rely on carefully managing the vibes and timing things right, and a leak can throw things off balance. Considering how the road to the Grand Theft Auto 6 launch has functionally ruined the Christmas release calendar, it doesn't take a genius to figure that Rockstar probably wasn't happy with this.

Despite it being a Sunday, it looks like the red telephone was working just fine, because by the time I reached FNAC, the listing was no longer available. Just to be sure, I walked over to the pre-order wall and checked the system one last time, but for naught: I wasn't going to buy GTA 6 today after all.

My misfortune, of course, is a small one. I knew this would be the outcome, and even if I had somehow managed to place my pre-order, I wouldn't get to play it until November unless someone screwed up in an even funnier way.

The bigger issue is the blind faith being placed in the FNAC listing having the correct price. Now, don't get me wrong; I like FNAC Portugal, but the French-owned store has a habit of opening pre-orders for games significantly earlier than the official source, using its best guess for the price. To incentivize this, FNAC likes to throw in a 15% discount.

Since most of these early pre-orders are launched before the game has an official price tag, in-store pre-orders let you pay half now, and the other half when you go pick up the game on launch day. If by the time the game launches, it is cheaper than FNAC's estimate, you simply have less to pay. If it costs more, you either pay the difference or get a refund for your deposit, no questions asked.

These FNAC pre-orders tend to open at the very beginning of the year a game is expected to launch, which occasionally leads to tragicomedies playing out, like Cyberpunk 2077 or STALKER 2 lingering in pre-order purgatory following successive delays. It looks like either Rockstar or FNAC, on its own initiative, decided to stick to the global release plan for GTA 6.

If the worst does come to pass and GTA 6 launches at $79.99 for the base game, we may be headed for a dark age in gaming prices. As things stand, games are the only thing that remains more or less predictable, while hardware costs go through the roof.

Until then, I will quietly pretend everything is OK until Thursday. Maybe by this time next year, I will have saved up enough to buy a $79.99 game.

Systems

Released November 19, 2026

ESRB Rating Pending - Likely Mature 17+