When GTA 6 was announced back in December 2023 alongside the first trailer, it was only confirmed to release on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. Whilst the lack of PC confirmation was disappointing for many, it was also not a big surprise given Rockstar’s track record.
In a new interview, Take-Two (Rockstar’s parent company) CEO Strauss Zelnick actually answered a question about the missing PC version along with several others on GTA and the whole company. It took place during the TD Cowen 52nd Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference on Thursday. This interview below was transcribed and cleared up for readability.
GTA Online and GTA V has made a lot of money
The host of the talk said TD Cowen estimates that since launch, GTA V has made $10 billion in bookings. Mr Zelnick seemed to agree it was close saying it was “simple math”. The next question moved onto GTA VI.
The host asked “When you think about GTA VI and what you’ve seen they’re working on, are you confident that this franchise can take another leap forward in terms of its revenue and its reach?”
Zelnick’s response was quite long and hits home how big GTA has become: “The world is a different place than when we did launch GTA V. What came before at that point was IV, we had some downloadable add-on content, there was no online version.” (Well, GTA IV did have an online mode Strauss…just not “GTA Online”).
“It was sort of neck and neck with Call of Duty at that point. Here we are now with V, 10-11 years later, having done what it has done, we’re a real outlier. We are the number one entertainment property of all time across all forms of entertainment. When Rockstar put out a trailer, the announcement of the trailer basically broke the internet. And the trailer had 93 million views on YouTube in 24 hours which was a record and that was just the trailer. The anticipation is huge, one can’t deny that.”
However, we still have not seen actual gameplay from the player’s perspective nor do we know if it will be broken on release for example. Strauss knows it is all talk at the moment as he said “That’s great, it’s a wonderful data point and yet we still have to deliver an amazing, perfect, video game. And less until we do that, these are all just words. And if we do do that, and that’s certainly what Rockstar and Take-Two want to do, the opportunity is huge, really huge.
Look where Take-Two was, look at our clout in the marketplace in 2013, now look at Take-Two we’re the number two player in the business (…) We’re in a very different place than we were in 2013. We certainly have the ability to support a hit title that is unmatched in the industry.”
Where is GTA VI on PC?
The next question was about GTA VI on PC and why it has not been announced yet. The host said to Mr Zelnick “You have announced GTA VI for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, you haven’t announced it for PC, can you talk a bit about that decision, is that set in stone or?”
“Well, the lack of an announcement is not something that could be set in stone as near as I could tell, because the only thing that happens after the lack of an announcement is an announcement, I suppose, or a continuing lack of an announcement, I guess that could happen too. It doesn’t seem to me that either would be set in stone.
But Rockstar has an approach to platforms which we’ve seen before, and they’ll make more announcements in due time. I do believe that the right strategy for our business is to be where the consumer is, and historically what this company has done is address consumers anywhere they are, on any platform that makes sense over time.”
Strauss Zelnick
So in short, he does not confirm nor deny a PC port. We all expect a PC version post release. Zelnick does note that Rockstar have a history of doing such things with say GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2.
The host asked Zelnick another question: “If you look out, I know we’re not even at GTA VI yet, but thinking about…” to which Zelnick interjects with “GTA 7?” (Obviously, Zelnick is joking). The host continues with “I imagine a few things are true. One, Rockstar would prefer not to have another 12 year gap between major iterations of their franchise.
Two, I imagine they have really big ambitions for their live service component which you guys haven’t talked about yet. But I’m sure with everything you learned from GTA Online, they’ll be thinking about how to make it bigger and better. Three, Rockstar probably has other ideas it wants to work on beyond GTA over the next 10 years. So they can achieve all of the things they want to do, is it a resource issue or another issue?”
Mr Zelnick really wanted to hammer it home that Rockstar have been busy since GTA V came out and GTA VI has not taken 12 years: “It is important to bear in mind that it’s not like Rockstar putout GTA V and sat on their hands for 12 years right.
We launched GTA Online that’s turned into a massive, living, breathing ecosystem which continues to perform and grow to this day. So the label totally transformed from a label that made big, standalone, monolithic, games (…) to a label that’s now in the live services business.
I do thing given the scale of that label, it’s a huge company itself, there isn’t much more to be done. This isn’t a situation where it is 12 years of girth of product, there’s 12 years where Rockstar has been putting out a mass amount of content. And another little title called Red Dead.”
There were a lot of words with not too much substance. However, we did get a handful of interesting choice of words. No doubt GTA VI will come to PC but when? Whenever Rockstar Games know they can achieve a great PC port out of the gate.
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