GTA 6 Is Likely To Snub PC At Launch And A Former Rockstar Games Dev Explains Why
This isn't really a surprise because all of Rockstar's previous games since GTA III have launched late on the PC, sometimes as long as years later. GTA IV took just 7 months to land on PC, but the next title took fully 19 months to find its way onto Windows, and Red Dead Redemption 2 was only slightly faster at 15 months. Given this track record, it would frankly be more surprising if the game came to PC directly.
So we understand that the games typically don't show up on PC immediately, and we've come to terms with it. But why is this the case? As long-time PC gamers, many obvious reasons come to mind: a slower return on investment from the PC version compared to console versions, the possibility of provoking people to purchase your product twice, and the need for additional play-testing and polishing, because perfunctory console ports often precipitate problematic PC performance.
All of these reasons come up in a video published by Mike York on YouTube titled "Why Does a PC Port for GTAVI take so long to come out?" The title is a little odd, given that we don't even necessarily know that the game will come to PC, but that aside, the video is informative if you're not familiar with the topic. York is an artist and animator who specializes in character animation and formerly worked for Rockstar Games, including on GTA V.
Aside from the aforementioned common-sense rationalizations for late PC releases, York gives his perspective on the topic, which is that he would like gamers to be patient and allow development studios the time they need to make the PC version the best possible version of the game.
It's definitely true that Rockstar's last couple of PC ports (being GTA V and RDR2) have been notably high-quality software with an excellent array of configuration options to allow scaling the software for smooth performance on both lower-end machines and future high-end hardware. That's on top of being remarkably bug-free, at least in a relative sense. The long delays between the console and PC releases may just be why.
