As fans eagerly await the launch of GTA 6 on November 19, 2026, more details are emerging that will likely shape their expectations. A new report revealed that Japanese gamers who purchase a physical edition of the upcoming release will have 170 days to redeem the code before it expires.
According to Japanese media Genki_JPN, the time given for players to redeem the code was due to regional regulations. There is a strict consumer protection law in Japan that requires sellers of digital codes to pay the Japanese government a substantial amount in case their companies go under or disappear from the market.
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The question that many gamers have yet to answer is whether the expiration date will start counting from when GTA 6 was released or when the player purchased it from the store.
There are so many other speculations flying around regarding the matter. One opinion is that there won’t be another physical release in Japan after the first wave. Another is that the 170 days is the time that it will take Rockstar to ship a physical version with a disc in the box.
Although this is a regional peculiarity, as the code will not expire in the majority of the regions across the world, it would not be a topic of discussion in the first place if it was an actual disc in the box rather than a code.
Rockstar explains GTA 6 region-locked codes
The new report also mentioned that the code in the box is region-locked. In other words, the code must be purchased and redeemed in the same region as the user’s account. PlayStation 5 players are mostly affected by this policy.
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Rockstar explained in a new FAQ post that there will be restrictions on GTA 6 code redemptions “based on the region associated with your platform account”. However, the region-locking doesn’t apply to Xbox codes.
Therefore, PS5 users are advised to “buy and play from a retailer that is in the country of your platform account to avoid potential activation problems”. The list of regions and countries affected by region locking includes:
- Brazil: Brazil
- LATAM: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay
- North America: Canada, United States
- Korea: South Korea
- Japan: Japan
- Product codes in Japan will expire 170 days after the issuance date, which is the launch date (November 19, 2026) due to regional regulations.
- United Kingdom: United Kingdom
- Saudi Arabia & UAE: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates
- Rest of Asia: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand
- Rest of EMEA and Asia: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine
Why gamers should be concerned about the death of discs
If publishers and developers succeed in killing discs, it will give them more control over what gamers can play and how they can play it. GTA 6’s twin policies of a code in the box and region locking will make it harder for players to look for alternative retailers elsewhere if the product is not available in their region.
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Also, that is another hurdle for people who purchase game discs as gifts and send them to their friends or relatives in other regions. But these challenges are far less of a concern compared to what lies ahead. If gamers allow publishers to succeed with the post-disc era, we can only imagine what they will ask gamers to give up next.
Plus, post-disc releases usher in an era where gamers don’t truly own the titles they purchase. Whenever there is an Xbox or PSN outage, players may be restricted from having access to their games. Players should always have an option, and a disc-less era takes one more option away.
