There’s really only one reason why Rockstar would later release Grand Theft Auto 6 on PC

There's really only one reason why Rockstar would later release Grand Theft Auto 6 on PC

Back in 2020, Evan Lahti, strategy director for PC Gamer, wrote that PC won the console war, and that assessment seems even more true now than it did four years ago. Our platform of choice has the same benefits as it always has⁠—customization, modulation, and practically endless backwards compatibility⁠—but in recent years we’ve also become a magnet for former console-exclusive games.

Microsoft abandoned gaming before the start of the current generation of consoles, and despite Nintendo’s vociferous insistence to the contrary, you can still emulate your games on PC legally. Sony is still pushing goofy PSN requirements and a six-month to one-year exclusivity window on its best releases, but this strategy makes sense⁠—I don’t like it, but it’s in line with Sony betting the future of its games on its hardware⁠.

However, there’s a big thorn left on the console exclusivity front, and it’s all the more aggravating because it doesn’t really make sense the way Sony or Nintendo’s protections do: why do we always have to wait so long for Rockstar games?

Make it Sense Grand Theft Auto 3: 7 months between console and PC versions Vice City: 7 months San Andreas: 8 months Bully: 2 years GTA 4: 7 months Red Dead Redemption: 14 years 5 months GTA 5: 1 year 6 months RDR2: 1 year

Square Enix has been like this for a long time as well, despite being a third-party publisher. Final Fantasy 16 and the FF7 remake can at least be construed as failed bets: Squeenix struck timed exclusivity deals with Sony that ultimately didn’t seem to justify the lost sales, and the JRPG giant appears to be reconsidering that strategy moving forward.

There’s no simple, immediate answer to why Red Dead Redemption 2 came to PC a full year after PS4 and Xbox, or why Grand Theft Auto 5 was given two separate console generations before it came to PC. The worst, for my money, is the original Red Dead Redemption: we’ll finally be putting it on our favorite console at the end of this month for $50, 14 years after its initial release. Nintendo Switch, the tablet-powered console of the early 2010s, got RDR1 before us!

Rockstar’s PC track record has gotten worse over time.

It’s not a technical problem. Porting a video game is no easy feat, even in the age of consoles that are merely specialized computers. But for a company of Rockstar’s size and resources, I have a hard time believing that a PC port of one of their games is anything other than a routine exercise. As PCG hardware writer Nick Evanson pointed out last December: There’s no technical reason Rockstar can give for why the PC version of GTA 6 won’t arrive with the console version.

It was frustrating, though more understandable, when Japanese game developer Capcom took an extra seven months to bring Monster Hunter: World to PC in 2018. World was the first Monster Hunter game ever on PC (outside of an MMO Spin-off in Asia only). , and it took a few months of patches for Capcom to get the interface and performance right. The studio is much better on PC now — and look, the next Monster Hunter will be released on day one on PC.

However, Rockstar’s PC track record has gotten worse over time. It only took half a year for each entry in the GTA 3 trilogy to move from PS2 to PC at a time when PC ports of big console games were not a guarantee. Compare that with the over a year delay for GTA 5 and RDR 2. Meanwhile, the 14-year wait for RDR 1 seems almost spiteful. A baby born on the day Red Dead Redemption was released is now old enough to trick his parents into letting them play this PC port because it’s “literary and historical and stuff like that.”

At the time of writing, Rockstar hasn’t even confirmed that GTA 6 will release on PC at all. With no clear explanation, the most logical conclusion is a boring one: Rockstar gets a second boost in revenue from the PC versions of its games, a bit of subsequent profit that doesn’t include a shortage of PC-preferred players who buy the game twice.

(Image credit: Rockstar)

This is clever profit maximization from Rockstar, but it’s also an alienating and insulting attitude toward PC gamers that could hurt the studio in the long run. In 2023, total PC gaming revenue rose 8% while consoles stagnated at 0.5% growth. Consoles still have a larger market share overall, but a big chunk of their 28% share is the Nintendo Switch (the console that Rockstar doesn’t do) as well as the surprisingly large number of gamers still clinging to their PS4s (and hardware Five or so with Xbox One devices connected).

If this trend continues⁠—Sony’s new $700 PS5 and slow game output makes me think it will—it increasingly looks like Rockstar is hitching its cart to the slower horse. While this won’t stop Grand Theft Auto 6 from making a mint and a half, it could one day lead to something similar to Square Enix’s current problems: the new mainline entry of the juggernaut Final Fantasy series is hampered by an exclusivity period that never happened. Make an imaginary big square and stepped port for your PC that can’t make any impact.

Rockstar certainly has the opportunity to stop ignoring PC gamers — a huge market that shouldn’t be an afterthought for developers — before that happens, but when has long-term growth and stability ever been prioritized over short-term gains in the gaming industry? Given the inertia inherent in an operation of Rockstar’s size, the PC launch plan for GTA 6 is likely set in stone. Unless, of course, Sam Houser has some sort of twist on “A Christmas Carol” this holiday season — you never know!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *