insider gaming's new zealand trick guide for gta 6 on xbox is actually useful

Insider Gaming put up a piece today about using the New Zealand region swap on Xbox to play GTA 6 as early as possible. Normally I scroll past their stuff because half of it is recycled listicles, but this one caught my eye since launch is close enough that every hour counts.

The gist is the same old trick: change your console region to New Zealand, restart, and the unlock timer shifts to NZ time, which is way ahead of most of us. The article claims to break down all the time zones so you can figure out exactly when that is for you. I didn't grab the specifics, but it's the kind of thing people on this board have been asking about since the date got locked in.

I'm on a Series X and I've done this for a couple of other launches. It's not a glitch, it's just how the store checks your region. You're not getting a leaked build or anything sketchy. You're playing the same game everyone else gets, just a handful of hours sooner if you're in the US or Europe.

The one thing I'd say is don't switch your account region, just the console location setting. And if you're on PS5, this won't do anything for you since Sony ties unlocks to the account's region in a different way. Not saying that's in the article, just what I know from past launches.

Anyway, might be worth a look if you're on Xbox and planning to pull an all-nighter on the 18th. I'm probably going to try it, worst case I'm up at 6am my time instead of midnight.

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Source: Insider Gaming · Curated content.