GTA 6 seems to be skipping PC during launch because the developers “want to prioritize what sells,” explains an ex-Rockstar Games developer. Rockstar officially revealed GTA 6 on December 4, claiming that the game is planned to come out on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S sometime in 2025. Since there was no announcement for the game's PC version, many people assumed that GTA 6 might be skipping PC, at least at the time of launch.
If this does end up happening, then it won’t come as a surprise since Rockstar has a record of following this pattern. Their last entry in the GTA series that launched on both consoles and PC at the same time was GTA 2, so this further proves the suspicion.
Mike York, former Rockstar Games animator, also agreed with this assumption and recently claimed that GTA 6’s PC port will most probably take much longer to develop. He further explained in a YouTube video posted on December 11 where he said that Rockstar has always wanted to "prioritize what sells."
In the past, the company’s priority has always been PlayStation, with York remembering how the developers initially had their entire focus on PS3 when he was still working on GTA 5, even though the game’s Xbox 360 version was being developed at the same time. York gave multiple reasons why the console versions were far better than the games’ PC versions.
Some of these reasons are that console versions sell much better, with PlayStation having a track record of being Rockstar’s most lucrative platform. Secondly, console versions are much easier to develop since there are many parts that make PC optimization quite difficult as compared to consoles, which possess similar hardware and require far less testing. Lastly, Rockstar Games is devoted to prioritizing whatever sells better and is much easier to develop.
Why does Rockstar prioritize console versions over PC?
York stated that while Rockstar didn’t expect GTA 5’s Xbox 360 port to outsell the PS3 version, it was still easy to develop them in tandem since it only required the studio to focus on two systems. This means that optimizing the games for PC turns out to be a massive undertaking because of the plenty of hardware configurations. York believes that the same will be the case for GTA 6.
The former Rockstar animator claims that while PC gaming is quite popular nowadays, and its sales trump the games’ console counterparts, it’ll still be much easier for devs to optimize video games for a couple of console systems than a huge variety. So, the top reason why Rockstar Games has always avoided PC at launch is because of the fact that PC optimization "might be harder than rocket science in some situations,” as per York.
Mike asked fans to wait patiently and told them that the studio is trying its best to deliver the best game possible. For now, we have no idea when the game might reach PC. However, 2027 does sound like a possible launch window, considering the fact that GTA 6 comes out on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in late 2025.
You can check out the poll from the GTA 6 News Source Facebook page below, and vote:
