It's the best of times and the worst of times for fans of "Grand Theft Auto," especially for PC gamers waiting patiently for word of when they'll get to play "GTA 6." But according to a former Rockstar employee, the delay makes more sense than you may realize. Here's the insider's reason on why the long-awaited game isn't launching on PC.
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00:00It's the best of times and the worst of times for fans of Grand Theft Auto.
00:04You don't need us to tell you that the years-long wait for a look at GTA 6 is over.
00:08You're looking at it right now.
00:10And while getting a new look at Vice City after all these years was certainly exciting,
00:14that excitement was almost immediately sucked out of the room for PC gamers.
00:19In short, PC gamers are still not sure when they can expect to play GTA 6,
00:23as Rockstar has only discussed the 2025 release window for the PS5
00:28and Xbox Series X and S versions of the game.
00:31You want bread?
00:32Yes, please.
00:33Three dollars!
00:36Nothing for you!
00:38Going by previous Rockstar Games release strategies, PC gamers are assuming they won't
00:43have access to GTA 6 until at least sometime in 2026. Up to this point, Rockstar has not
00:49released an official statement regarding the lack of a PC release for GTA 6. But a
00:54former developer from Rockstar Games has shed some light on why the developer
00:58seems to have shut out PC players once again.
01:01There's been a radical shift in my fortunes, Doc.
01:04Former Rockstar New England animator Mike York has a pretty good idea of
01:08Rockstar's thinking in this situation. Before leaving the developer in 2017,
01:12York worked on two of Rockstar's biggest and most celebrated titles,
01:16Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2.
01:19In other words, he speaks from experience when it comes to the GTA franchise.
01:23In a chat with IGN, York explained that the current absence of GTA 6 on PC
01:28may be boiled down to a simpler matter of the developer going where the money is.
01:33First of all, York told IGN, PlayStation is king when it comes to Rockstar's release strategies.
01:38He explained,
01:39The reason why a PC port comes later and not the first thing that comes out
01:42is because they want to prioritize what sells. Most of the time, especially in the past,
01:47PlayStation was the big seller. PlayStation was the console to have.
01:51It sold more than any other console for the most part. Everybody's playing PlayStation.
01:56This is why Grand Theft Auto 5 was released for home consoles first,
02:00then PC nearly two years later. Rockstar really got moving on building the PC port
02:04once the game had officially launched for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
02:09It's not just the availability and popularity of the PlayStation ecosystem
02:13that determines Rockstar's release strategy, however.
02:16There's also the argument that porting a game to PC presents far more challenges on a technical
02:21level than bringing a title to PlayStation or Xbox. According to York,
02:25On a PlayStation and an Xbox, each one of those has one graphics card. And it's the
02:30same graphics card. It's the same architecture inside the box as every single PlayStation
02:34that ships to millions of people. But when it comes to a PC,
02:38every single person has a different PC. They're running it differently.
02:42They have different hardware in there. They have different CPUs and GPUs.
02:46In other words, Rockstar developers have to consider all kinds of different fail states
02:51and possible performance issues when developing a PC port, which leads to extensive bug testing.
02:56It's not gonna be an issue because everything's gonna go just fine.
02:59In the interview with IGN, York conceded that gamers' enthusiasm for a PC port
03:04makes perfect sense. But he also explained that the reality of game design is such that
03:08even a company like Rockstar only has so many resources to go around. He said,
03:13A lot of times people are so antsy for the PC port. They want it right now.
03:18It's hard to do that as a developer because the team isn't big enough.
03:21If they had just one team working on the PC, one team working on the Xbox,
03:25and the whole time they'd be trying to optimize all three at the same time,
03:29but it just doesn't work that way.
03:30That's why Rockstar has found that it tends to be easier to finish and release the console
03:35version of a big game first, then move on to troubleshooting and fine-tuning the PC version.
03:40The console version of GTA 6 is most likely going to be the biggest moneymaker in the long run,
03:45so the developer will make sure that it's the one that gets polished
03:48and sent to market as soon as possible.
03:50PC gamers are sure to be disappointed by this explanation,
03:53especially after waiting so long for the next GTA title.
03:57However, assuming that Rockstar still follows many of the same principles that it did when
04:01York was still with the company, this strategy makes a good bit of sense.
04:05Until Rockstar Games finally puts out a statement of its own regarding the lack of PC news,
04:10this may also be the best explanation we can get.