Tuesday, December 5th 2023
No GTA 6 for PC Gamers at Launch, Rockstar Confirms
Rockstar Games has officially released a Grand Theft Auto 6 (or VI) trailer that brings together millions of GTA series fans. However, the game will remain exclusive for gaming consoles at launch. On the landing page for GTA 6, there is a note that says, "Grand Theft Auto VI heads to the state of Leonida, home to the neon-soaked streets of Vice City and beyond in the biggest, most immersive evolution of the Grand Theft Auto series yet. Coming 2025 to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S." While the first trailer showed this, we now have written confirmation that GTA 6 is a console exclusive at launch, whenever it happens in 2025.
If long-time GTA gamers remember, the situation was very much the same with the launch of the fifth installment in the GTA series, GTA V, which got a PC port almost two years after the initial release. The GTA V was released in September 2013 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles and got an upgrade to a new console cycle in November 2014 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Only in April 2015 was the game released for Windows-based PCs, as Rockstar took its time to polish the port and make it work with PC gamers' various hardware choices. While we hope to avoid seeing such a big cadence from console to PC port, it will surely take Rockstar some extra time to make a PC version run smoothly.
Source:
GTA 6 Landing Page
If long-time GTA gamers remember, the situation was very much the same with the launch of the fifth installment in the GTA series, GTA V, which got a PC port almost two years after the initial release. The GTA V was released in September 2013 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles and got an upgrade to a new console cycle in November 2014 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Only in April 2015 was the game released for Windows-based PCs, as Rockstar took its time to polish the port and make it work with PC gamers' various hardware choices. While we hope to avoid seeing such a big cadence from console to PC port, it will surely take Rockstar some extra time to make a PC version run smoothly.
93 Comments on No GTA 6 for PC Gamers at Launch, Rockstar Confirms
It doesnt matter than the pc gaming market is worth far more. R* arent here to drive hardware sales.
There are also far more system configurations that the developers have to optimise the game for (1.1billion different hardware combinations) where as consoles come in 2 or 3 different versions. A base version with lesser hardware than a pro version with more powerful upgraded hardware and maybe a 3rd version which can be a hardware refresh of one of the two units -- this is of course ignoring all the different special or limited edition units where the differences to standard units are purely cosmetic.
Whats more difficult? Cooking for a group with a billion allergy issues or cooking for a group with ONE allergy issue?
In addition, how hard it is to cook for certain allergens depends heavily on the kitchen and chef. I've lived with severe food issues my entire life so cooking for any allergy including peanut, Soy, celiac, milk, ect would be simple because I both have the receipes and know substitutions. Any chef worth their salt is going to be able to sub in ingredients to accomodate allergies on the spot.
We are all aware that PC is harder to optimize for but that doesn't change the fact that Rockstar is more an outlier in terms of their release candence than an indicator of a fact of the market. Thousands of other AAA PC games released to date have all been optimized on PC just fine.
No source is provided for this chart's data. I googled for the data and could not find it anywhere so I have no idea where their data comes from. The chart was published in 2020 (not stated in the article itself for some reason) so it isn't up to date. Important as there was an explosion of GTA V Online PC private servers. Let's say we take the chart at face value despite not knowing the source, you can't say PC sales wouldn't be better if it released at the same time or close to the console release date. The 2 year release date gap is going to have an impact, just what that might be is hard to say but only 2.1% sales for PC seems incorrect irregardless.
vginsights.com/game/271590
Still, that means targeting ~90% of your userbase on a handful of platforms for the initial release is smart planning.
Regardless, PC market share has almost always lagged behind console, by significant margins. EA at one point dropped FIFA to "legacy" status on PC while consoles got the full treatment. That's how little PC means to devs who target multiple platforms.
So since it´s first in 2025 it comes out and the last two gta games first came out to pc a year or longer time after.
Us pc gamers will first get the game sometime in 2026 or 2027, depending on when in 2025 it comes to consoles.
As for AAA PC games being optimised. I dont recall any good AAA game in the last decade that have been released 'Just fine' optimised state for PC. Many titles were released in a half-finished mess when its clear that it needed more time in the oven but that is how AAA publishers do. Release it half baked to sell a few million copies then a year or two down the line have the game be a complete game and experience, all tweaked and fully optimised. There might be the odd one or two games who are the outliers but those are so few and far between. Games like Baldur's Gate 3. The Uncharted series...
So I dont know how you come to the opinion that AAA PC games have been released in a great state. Even the Witcher games needed a little work after they were released.
GTA 5 was a mind numbingly effective money machine, Rockstar made literal billions in profit, they could 100% make a PC port that's polished enough on release, they specifically choose not to on purpose in order to maximize profits. That's a well known strategy that they use.
There is no such thing as porting nowdays, both consoles and computers are using same architectures on both cpu and gpu. An Xbox Series X/S is essentially a glorified computer.
The only reason to do this is greed, fear of piracy or both.
I also hear Rockstar is considering a PC release, but they'll only do it if we allow Nvidia DLSS ads until 2025 on TPU's news section. Nah its just greed and stupid consumers eating that for granted, because its GTA. Rockstar gets away with it, so they do it. I don't know why this is so complicated to understand. Input = output. We feed our own monsters.
Fear of piracy was fixed ages ago, with DRM and online requirement.