GTA 6 pre-load now opens November 10, and Rockstar says you need 212GB

Rockstar Games confirmed on November 3, 2026 that the GTA 6 pre-load for digital copies of “Grand Theft Auto VI” will open on Tuesday, November 10, two days earlier than the November 12 date that had been attached to pre-orders, and that the download “will require up to 212 GB depending on your device”. The game itself still launches on November 19 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

For players in Nigeria, the change adds two extra days to get a very large file onto the console before launch night, and it settles a figure that had only been reported unofficially until now. NaijaGamer’s earlier report on the reported 210GB PS5 download was based on a PlayStation Store tracking account, and Rockstar’s own number has come in slightly higher.

PS5 players in Nigeria can start at midnight, Xbox an hour later

The two consoles don’t open at the same moment. Rockstar said digital pre-loading on PlayStation 5 begins at midnight local time on November 10, so it rolls out time zone by time zone around the world. In Nigeria that means 12am West Africa Time, as Monday night turns into Tuesday.

Xbox Series X|S works differently, with a single global start of 12am GMT on November 10. Nigeria is one hour ahead of GMT, so Xbox owners here can begin at 1am on Tuesday. Anyone who bought the boxed edition should note that the code-in-box copies for both consoles are due in shops from November 12, so their wait is two days longer than that of digital buyers.

212GB is a ceiling, and your console needs room on top of it

Rockstar’s wording matters here. “Up to 212 GB depending on your device” means the PS5 and Xbox versions may not be exactly the same size, and the size of a pre-load isn’t always the size the game ends up taking once it’s installed and patched. A launch-day update on November 19 could add more, and Rockstar hasn’t said how big that will be.

Rockstar has advised players to make sure they have enough space before the pre-load begins, without naming a figure beyond the 212GB maximum. On PS5, Settings > Storage shows what’s free and which games are taking the most room, and on Xbox the same information sits in the console’s storage settings. Clearing more than 212GB rather than exactly that amount gives the game space to unpack and leaves a cushion for the day-one patch.

How long 212GB takes on a Nigerian connection

The download time depends almost entirely on the speed you actually get, not the speed on your plan. At a steady 100Mbps, 212GB takes a little under five hours. At 20Mbps it stretches to roughly 24 hours, and at 10Mbps it’s closer to two full days of continuous downloading. Those figures assume the line holds its speed the whole time, which home broadband and mobile hotspots rarely do in the evening.

That’s why the nine days between November 10 and launch are useful. Starting the pre-load as soon as it opens, leaving it running overnight and pausing other downloads on the same network gives a slow connection time to finish. A wired connection to the console is usually steadier than Wi-Fi, and NaijaGamer’s guide to steadier gaming connections on MTN, Airtel, Glo and T2 covers which networks tend to hold up at busy hours. Players who still haven’t bought the game can check the details in our piece on GTA 6’s price, pre-orders and the no-disc box.

Rockstar posted the pre-load schedule on its official Newswire, and that page is where any change to the timing or a confirmed launch-day patch size would appear first. For digital buyers on a slower line, the earlier date turns a tight one-week window into nine days, provided the storage is cleared before Monday night.