Opinion: GTA 6 has two pre-load clocks, and New Zealand only wins one of them

This is Vox, with an opinion. The dates, times and prices come from Rockstar and the PlayStation Store, listed at the bottom. Every conversion and every bit of arithmetic below is mine, and so are the opinions. Fair warning: I swear in this one.

Rockstar did something quietly odd on November 3. It gave GTA 6 two different pre-load clocks, one per console, and they do not agree with each other anywhere on Earth except London.

Everyone has noticed that New Zealand goes first on one of them. Fewer people have noticed it comes last on the other. So I got out a world clock and a calculator and worked out who actually wins.

The two clocks

From Rockstar's Newswire post:

• PS5: digital pre-loading opens on Tuesday, November 10 at midnight local time. Every time zone gets its own midnight.
• Xbox Series X|S: pre-loading opens globally at 12 a.m. GMT on November 10. One moment for the whole planet.
• Size: up to 212 GB, depending on the console.

That is all Rockstar said. Everything from here is me.

Who gets the download first

Here is when the pre-load opens in six cities, with the time in GMT in brackets so you can compare like for like.

• Auckland: PS5 at midnight on November 10 (11 a.m. GMT, November 9). Xbox at 1 p.m. on November 10. PS5 wins by 13 hours.
• Sydney: PS5 at midnight on November 10 (1 p.m. GMT, November 9). Xbox at 11 a.m. on November 10. PS5 wins by 11 hours.
• Tokyo: PS5 at midnight on November 10 (3 p.m. GMT, November 9). Xbox at 9 a.m. on November 10. PS5 wins by 9 hours.
• London: both at midnight on November 10. A dead heat. Congratulations, Britain, on the most boring result.
• New York: Xbox at 7 p.m. on Monday, November 9. PS5 at midnight that night. Xbox wins by 5 hours.
• Los Angeles: Xbox at 4 p.m. on Monday, November 9. PS5 at midnight that night. Xbox wins by 8 hours.

So the famous "go first" country only goes first on PlayStation. On Xbox, the whole planet starts at the same instant, and in Auckland that instant is lunchtime, by which point Auckland's PS5 owners have been downloading for 13 hours. Nobody on Xbox is ahead of anybody else. And the Americas, which always come last for local-midnight launches, come first on Xbox. Rockstar has accidentally built a world where an Xbox owner in Ohio beats a PS5 owner in Ohio by five hours. Bloody lovely.

One small correction while we are here. A few timetables doing the rounds give the Xbox time in New Zealand as 12 p.m. NZDT. It is 1 p.m. New Zealand is on daylight saving in November, 13 hours ahead of GMT, not 12.

Now the small print: is a head start worth anything

People do clever things to get a head start, including making a New Zealand PlayStation account. So what is an hour of head start actually worth? Depends on your internet.

Here is how long 212 GB takes at a steady speed, assuming nothing else is using the line and the servers are not on their knees, which on November 10 they might be:

• 1,000 Mbps: about half an hour.
• 300 Mbps: about 1.6 hours.
• 100 Mbps: about 4.7 hours.
• 50 Mbps: about 9.4 hours.
• 25 Mbps: about 19 hours.
• 10 Mbps: about 47 hours.

And the window is nine days. On PS5, midnight on November 10 to midnight on November 19 is 216 hours. To move 212 GB in 216 hours you need an average of about 2.2 Mbps. Not 22. Two point two.

So the honest maths of the New Zealand trick for an American PS5 player is this. It buys about 18 hours on New York time. At 25 Mbps, that is one whole download. At 100 Mbps, it is four hours of your console sitting there finished, waiting nine days with you. For almost everyone, it buys nothing but bragging rights over a progress bar.

What it costs

• Possibly the game, twice. A copy bought on your home PlayStation account does not move to a New Zealand one. The New Zealand PlayStation Store lists the Standard Edition at NZ$139.95 and the Ultimate Edition at NZ$174.95. If you have already pre-ordered, the trick is a second copy of a game you already own. That is not a trick. That is a damn donation.
• An account you have to look after. Some of the how-to guides suggest inventing a New Zealand address. I will not tell you to put made-up details on an account that will hold your games and your card. If that goes sideways, the guide is not coming to fix it.
• Nothing on Xbox, ever. The Xbox clock is global. No region change touches it.

And the one thing people actually want from New Zealand, playing early on November 19, is a separate question. Rockstar's November 3 post is about pre-loads and gives no launch time. Our GTA 6 unlock times guide has what is known so far. Until Rockstar says it plainly, early play is a maybe.

Verdict

If you are on Xbox in the Americas, you have already beaten your PS5 neighbours and did nothing to earn it. Start on Monday evening and enjoy it.

If you are on PS5 in the Pacific, you have also already won. Enjoy that too.

If you are on PS5 in the Americas with a decent connection, a New Zealand account buys you 18 hours of watching a finished download do nothing. If your connection is genuinely slow, under about 25 Mbps, the head start is real, but only if you have not bought the game yet, and only if you are happy running a second account with real details for the sake of it.

Everyone else: check your space first, then start the download when your own clock says go, and go to bed. Rolo's guide to checking your console storage will do more for your launch night than any time zone. For how big the files are on each machine, see how big the GTA 6 download is.

New Zealand will still be lovely on November 19. It just isn't the shortcut people think. Hell, on Xbox it isn't even a shortcut to lunch.