A GTA 6 PC port is all but a matter of time, new comments from Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Rockstar owner Take-Two, suggest.
At a short investors’ meeting convened earlier today, September 17, Zelnick fielded a question about Take-Two’s release strategy for GTA 6. Seemingly in reference to price and production issues, one stockholder asked: “Is the shortage of PS5 Pros causing changes in delivery of PC gaming?” (As it happens, PS5 Pros all but vanished after the GTA 6 Extended Look reveal, seeming as a result of anticipation pushing many players to splurge on a beefier console.)
“I assume this is a question regarding the cadence of PC launches,” Zelnick responds. “The strategy of the company is, over time, generally speaking, to launch for any platforms for which there’s a meaningful audience. But that isn’t always the case, and certainly, if platforms were no longer viable, we could change that strategy.”
Here’s the key line: “And I would note that the PC platform is becoming more and more important to our company over time.”
GTA 5 certainly had a meaningful presence on PC. On Steam, GTA 5 Enhanced has over 210,000 user reviews (83% positive) and, to this day, regularly ranks in the top 20 for the store’s daily active users.
This enhanced release replaced GTA 5 Legacy, which has been delisted from Steam but can still be viewed online. It has nearly 1.9 million user reviews (88% positive) and peaked at over 1.1 million concurrent players years ago, which would put it in Steam’s top 10 for all-time peaks.
Between the two editions, SteamDB trackers estimate GTA 5 has sold 50 to 90 million copies on PC – a very meaningful slice of the 230 million copies sold to date, even with conservative assumptions.
GTA 5 Legacy was released on Steam in April 2015, a few years after the game’s September 2013 console launch. Speculatively, GTA 6 may see a similar gap, upwards of 12 to 18 months, before a presumed PC port – long enough for console players to be happy to buy it again, you might argue. Not me, though. I’d never argue that.
Previously, Zelnick stressed that GTA 6 is skipping PC at launch to focus on the “core consumer” on consoles, not because of a rumored PlayStation exclusivity deal. “Historically, Rockstar’s gone to console first,” he said.
Zelnick’s stopped just short of confirming a PC release for GTA 6, but a man leading a company that loves money surely isn’t going to leave that much of it on the table, especially at a time when PC gaming is showing more growth than other core platforms.