As is usually the case, it all comes down to numbers…
Grand Theft Auto VI will be released in 2025 on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, but PC players will have to wait even longer, as Rockstar has confirmed the game will not be available on PC at launch. But why is this so?
According to Mike York, a former Rockstar developer who worked on projects like GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 from 2012 to 2017, it simply comes down to a matter of priority.
“They want to prioritize what sells,” York said in a recent video posted to his personal YouTube channel about the subject. “Most of the time, especially in the past, PlayStation was the big seller. PlayStation was the console to have. It sold more copies than any other console, for the most part, everybody is playing PlayStation.”
According to York, the PlayStation version of the game became the most important version. When he was at Rockstar, York said the developers spent the majority of their time making sure the PS3 version was the best it could be while also working on the Xbox 360 version.
“The PC version is kind of the version that’s in the background, that is running the two versions and building them,” York said. “There’s always a PC version of the game, but it’s not polished and it’s just kind of feeding the other games and making them work.”
Once the PlayStation version is complete and available to the public, the developers turn their attention to the PC version, which allows the team to push the game in ways that were not possible on consoles. York stated that a PC port will take longer because the developer must account for so many different variations of PCs and their components. As a result, the PC version requires more testing than the console version.
“On a PlayStation and an Xbox, each one of those has one graphics card, and it’s the same graphics card, it’s the same architecture inside the box as every single PlayStation that has shipped to millions of people,” York said. “When it comes to PC, every single person has a different PC. They are running it differently, they have different hardware in there, they have different kinds of CPUs and GPUs.”
It all comes down to priorities, as he previously stated. Because developers frequently do not have enough personnel to develop and test multiple versions of the same game at the same time, the PC version of major games frequently comes last, despite PC becoming a more popular place to play in recent years.
“We don’t have the money, we don’t have the resources, we don’t have the manpower,” York said. “So we prioritize what’s best for the company’s money, right? ‘What’s going to sell best? Well, most likely it’s the PlayStation. So let’s put all our energy into the PlayStation, and then the Xbox, and then the PC.'”
If history is any guide, a PC version of GTA VI will most likely be released at some point. GTA V was released on PC two years after its console debut, while Rockstar’s most recent game, Red Dead Redemption 2, was released one year after its console debut in 2018. The original Red Dead Redemption, which was released in 2010, was never ported to PC.
GTA VI doesn’t come out until 2025, but it’s already breaking records. The game’s first trailer has been viewed over 142 million times on YouTube. Over 93 million of those views came in the first 24 hours, breaking YouTube’s record for the most views in a single day for a non-music video.