Less than two weeks before GTA 6 unlocks, the question on PS5 forums is whether a console that has not been updated will start it at all. A PlayStation database entry is said to have moved the game’s required system software to version 14.22. Rockstar and Sony are both silent on it.
If the entry is right, the consequence is simple. Anyone holding back an old firmware on a modified console would have to install the update, and lose the modification, before the game launches. The number was previously 14.10, which is what surfaced in early October, and 14.22 is a security-only patch Sony shipped on 2 November.
Notebookcheck traced the figure to the PlayStation Game Size account, which tracks entries on PlayStation Network. It also lays out why firmware matters: the public Relapse jailbreak works on PS5 and PS5 Pro versions 7.00 to 13.60 and must be repeated after each restart, while September’s 14.00 sits outside that range. A kernel exploit for 14.10 has been demonstrated by a developer, yet the old way of dumping games reportedly fails there, and a second exploit teased in late October remains unreleased. Sony has not said whether its latest updates target jailbreaks.
Separately, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick was asked about piracy on stage at the WSJ Tech: California event on 4 November. “Piracy is a fact of life,” he said, adding that he had seen 10-20% piracy at any moment in film and a far bigger share of the music market in the 2000s. He thinks games suffer less because of their size and complexity and because a good experience depends on the publisher’s servers.
“It’s not been a non-issue,” Zelnick said, and if that changes the company would turn to lawyers first and engineers second. Jailbreaks were not mentioned, and Take-Two has not described what protection the game will ship with.
For players the calendar is unchanged. Pre-loads begin on 10 November, a date covered in our pre-load report, and the files take up to 212 GB. Boxed editions arrive on 12 November containing a download code, not a disc. The unlock is 19 November on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S; there is no PC version announced.
