You will not be strolling Vice City a week early. You will be staring at a progress bar so November 19 is a patch and an unlock, not a 150 GB panic.
When the download starts
Rockstar Support says November 12 at local midnight. 'Local' is doing a lot of work. Trust the store page on your account more than a countdown tweet.
I would not swap console regions just to steal a few hours. That trick has been getting people banned or locked out of content for years.
What I would actually do before the 12th
Nobody has published a sacred gigabyte number I trust. Third-party 'GTA 6 is 187.4 GB' posts are fan math until Rockstar or the store says otherwise.
- Make sure the preorder is on the account you play on, not a leftover shop account.
- Clear more space than the store estimate. Launch patches exist.
- Update the system software the night before.
- If you bought a box, check the PlayStation country group before you leave the house.
Launch morning is still launch morning
Preload just means most of the bits are already on the drive. You can still eat a patch, a store queue, or two-factor drama. Keep a little free space and your login healthy.
If you are the friend who hosts the first session, preload is the whole strategy. If you can wait a weekend, you can ignore the midnight clock and let the servers calm down. Both are sane.