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Grand Theft Auto VI is officially releasing on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S in 2025, but PC players will have to wait even longer, with Rockstar confirming the game won’t be available on PC at launch. But why?
According to former Rockstar developer Mike York, who worked at the studio from 2012-2017 on projects like GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2, it simply comes down to a matter of priority.
“They want to prioritize what sells,” York said in a recent video about the subject posted to his personal YouTube channel. “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.”
The PlayStation version of the game, then, became the most important version, York said. When he worked on GTA V while he was at Rockstar, York said the developers spent most of their time making sure the PS3 version was the best it could be, while simultaneously 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 the best it can be and available to the public, the developers turn their eye to the PC version, which gives the team an opportunity to push the game in different ways that weren’t possible on consoles. York said a PC port will take longer due to the developer having to accommodate for so many different variations of PCs and their components. A PC version needs to be tested more than the console versions as a result.
“On a PlayStation and a 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.”
As he said previously, it simply comes down to priorities. Developers often don’t have enough personnel to develop and test multiple versions of the same game at once, which is why the PC version of major games often comes last, despite PC having become 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 indication, a PC version of GTA VI will likely arrive at some point. GTA V released on PC two years after its debut on consoles, while Rockstar’s most recent game, Red Dead Redemption 2, released one year after its 2018 launch on consoles. However, the original Red Dead Redemption, released in 2010, was never ported to PC.
GTA VI may not be releasing until 2025, but it’s already breaking records. The game’s debut trailer on YouTube has been viewed more than 142 million times. Over 93 million of those views came within the first 24 hours, breaking YouTube’s record for the most views in a 24 hour period for a non-music related video.
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