There’s been a lot of exuberance and fanfare around theGTA 6teaser trailer from the other day, with even this old dog mustering upsome enthusiasm for its protagonistsdespitemoaning about it not being set in a retro time period. But amidst all the dizzying hype, one piece of all-too-familiar information (or lack thereof) stood out to PC players: GTA 6 won’t be launching on PC at the same time as on consoles.
The news isn’t all that surprising, given that every single GTA game since 3 has come to PC some time after its console launch. In the early days it was just a matter of months, but that delay increased with more recent generations. PC players had to wait eight months for GTA 4 after the console launch, 16 months forGTA V, and 13 months forRed Dead Redemption 2. So at least the trend for delay has decreased with the last major Rockstar outing, but we’re probably looking at around a year after the console release, so 2026, regardless.
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Why the Delay?
Rockstar never gave an official explanation for this frustrating pattern, and it’s not one common among publishers unless it’s a first-party console game (at which point the motive is to give the platform’s faithful first dibs, such as with how Sony brings Playstation games to PC). It’s not an exclusivity arrangement, nor is it likely to be a technical issue, given that modern consoles are effectively mid-range PCs in terms of hardware these days, so really that just leaves the other option, which is that it’s a business decision, a marketing move.
Just as GTA 6 starts to dip on those Trends charts,BOOM, it shoots right back up again.
First up, there are all the people who buy the game on PS5 or Xbox, and will happily double-dip to buy the game on PC further down the line, by which time a new generation of PC GPUs will have launched, and mid-high range PCs of 2026 will be able to run the game with unlocked framerates, improved graphics settings, and of course tons upon tons of mods. The PC version will effectively be the ‘ultimate’ version of the game, and the masses will lap it up.
The double-dippers won’t represent the majority of buyers of course, that’ll be the PC-only gamers who buy GTA 6 for the first time. But why deprive these people of the opportunity to celebrate the game’s launch along with the console folks?
Well, beyond the double-dip incentive, there’s the matter of soft power. A later PC launch means the game gets a second wave of reviews from dedicated PC outlets, a second wave of hands-ons, reviews, and streams, second wave of hype and thought pieces and all those things that keep the game at the forefront of gamers’ collective consciousness. Just as GTA 6 starts to dip on those Trends charts,BOOM, it shoots right back up again. It’s a strategy that’s worked great for Sony, and it’s worked great for Rockstar.
So extra sales, and a second wave of hype and coverage, and you have your answer. Of course, it could be seen as a bit of a dick move, given that most other major publishers choose to release their games at the same time across all platforms. It’s a uniquely Rockstar practice, it’s almost certainly synthetic (i.e. the games could come out on PC at the same time as consoles, or at least much sooner, if Rockstar actually wanted them to), and it’s a tad underhand, but hey, it’s not like Rockstar or Take-Two—companies known for development crunch, unscrupulous DMCA takedowns, and removing perfectly functional games from sale to push broken Definitive Editions—has ever been known to play nice.
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