GTA 6 copies to expire 6 months after purchase in some regions

Earlier this year, Rockstar Games announced that physical copies of GTA 6 wouldn't come with a disc in the box. Instead, they'd arrive with a code to redeem the digital version of the game.

Now, it appears that there will be a ticking time bomb on these physical codes with some of them expiring after 170 days of purchase. Thankfully, this is only in some regions of the world, with UK players having nothing to worry about.

It's in Japan where GTA 6 players will need to make sure they redeem their physical codes as soon as they can. Over on the Rockstar Games website, it confirms that codes will expire 170 days after hteir issuance, which is set at the release date of November 19, 2026.

"Product codes in Japan will expire 170 days after the issuance date, which is the launch date (November 19, 2026) due to regional regulations," the blog post reads.

This isn't a practice that's exclusive to GTA 6. Japan's Payment Services Act dictates that purchased redemption codes must be able to be refunded for half of their value if they aren't redeemed within six months.

That's unless the code expires before the six months is up, of course. 170 days is just 10 days shy of that six month cut-off, indicating that Rockstar seems to have thought ahead to protect itself from having to refund any unused copies.

Also in the blog post, Rockstar Games confirms that boxed copies of GTA 6 codes will be region locked on PlayStation 5. That means a code purchased in the UK can only be redeemed on a UK account, and the same goes for the US and Japan - no shopping around for cheaper codes internationally.

That doesn't apply to Xbox copies, though. Gamers should be able to pick up a boxed code of GTA 6 internationally and redeem it on their account regardless of their region.