Rockstar Games released the first trailer for GTA 6 earlier this month and it has taken the gaming world by storm, with the community discussing and speculating about the game. One of the most surprising pieces of information that came with the trailer was the release date and release platforms.
Rockstar revealed that GTA 6 will only be coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X with no mention of a PC port. This was a major point of discussion in the community and now Mike York, a former Grand Theft Auto developer has explained why Rockstar prioritizes PlayStation releases.
PlayStation is Rockstar Games’ Priority for GTA 6
Since Grand Theft Auto 3, Rockstar has always delayed the PC ports for its games and it is continuing the long going tradition with Grand Theft Auto 6. A former Rockstar developer, Mike York, who worked on games like Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2, has explained why the studio prioritizes PlayStation console over PC releases.
In a YouTube video titled “Why Does the PC version of a game take so long to come out?” talking about the delay in PC ports and the releases of games on consoles, York said that Rockstar focuses on sales and what sells, and most of the time it’s always been PlayStation, so the developer prioritizes the console. York stated:
One of the main things I want to touch on is that the reason why a PC port comes later and not the first thing that comes out is because they want to prioritize what sells.
Most of the time, especially in the past, PlayStation was the big seller. PlayStation was the console to have, it sold more than any other console for the most part, everybody is playing on PlayStation.
York added that Rockstar always focuses on making the PS port of the game work “really well” and focuses all of its energy on it because it is the most selling port of the game. Grand Theft Auto 5 sold well upon release as the game grossed more than $800 million in the first 24 hours and hit the $1 billion mark in just three days. That was in the PS3 generation, and it had even more sales than Xbox 360 too.
It is after PlayStation that the studio moves to Xbox and it’s usually at the same time. York also mentioned that while he was working on Grand Theft Auto 5, the studio was working on both PS3 and Xbox ports. However, even after working on both the console ports, PS3 was always the priority.
Mike York said that the studio puts all its energy into optimizing the game for PS for the game to work well on the console. Then that version is ported to Xbox and both the ports are worked on simultaneously and tested, and the PC version of the game is in the background.
He touched more upon the subject of PC ports and said that any developer wants to make the PC port the best it can and focuses on it after the PS release. York added that once the game is running smoothly on the console, it’s released and then the studio focuses on the PC game.
He stated that once developers start working on the game for PC, they can implement the new ideas they had for the game such as adding more characters, because the PC hardware can always run it better than the console and is optimized for the best parts available.
He said that the main reason behind the PC release coming after the console release is that there is different hardware and developers need to accommodate it. All the PlayStation and Xbox consoles have the same hardware, but every PC player could have different hardware, and developers need to work to optimize the game to run well on different hardware and it requires more testing.
Although there is no mention of a PC release for Grand Theft Auto 6, seeing the history of other games, the PC version of the title will be released a year or two after the console release.
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