Why does Rockstar hate PC gamers?

In a sense, PC gaming is winning the console war. The platform has its advantages as always, but the attitude of publishers towards it is gradually changing. However, Rockstar is still prioritizing PlayStation and Xbox, including Grand Theft Auto VI. PC Gamer portal tried to find out why.

PCs are increasingly becoming a haven for former console exclusives. Microsoft officially gave up before the start of the current generation, and Nintendo games, despite the corporation's claims, can still be legally emulated. Sony is still pushing the PlayStation Network and a one-year exclusivity period for its major releases, but the strategy makes sense.

There's still a question. Why did we have to wait so long for Rockstar games to launch on PC? To make it easier to understand, below is a list of the studio's biggest games and how long it took for them to come to PC.

• Grand Theft Auto 3 – 7 months from release on consoles and PC.
• Vice City – 7 months.
• San Andreas – 8 months.
• Bully – 2 years.
• Grand Theft Auto 4 – 7 months.
• Red Dead Redemption – 14 years 5 months.
• Grand Theft Auto 5 – 1 year 6 months.
• Red Dead Redemption 2 – 1 year

Square Enix follows a similar policy, despite the fact that the company itself is a third-party publisher. The remakes of Final Fantasy XVI and FF VII could at least be attributed to bad decisions. Square Enix has signed limited-time exclusivity deals with Sony. The deal does not appear to have made up for lost revenue, and the company is now reviewing its strategy.

But in Rockstar's case, there are no easy answers. No one knows why Red Dead Redemption 2 was released on PC just a year after it was released on PS4 and Xbox, or why Grand Theft Auto 5 appeared on two different console generations before being released. operate on the computer. The original Red Dead Redemption is generally far beyond good and evil, arriving on PC 14 years after its release on PS3 and Xbox 360. Even on Nintendo Switch, an extremely outdated console, it still receives was released earlier.

But it's not about technology. Switch games require resources, regardless of whether the current console is nothing more than a dedicated PC. But in the case of a company as large and wealthy as Rockstar, it's hard to imagine any problems with porting. We remind you that the developer did not explain why the PC version of Grand Theft Auto 6 will not appear at the same time as the console version.

It would be one thing if Rockstar's situation was similar to Capcom's. The Japanese publisher released Monster Hunter: World on PC seven months after the console release, not to mention the port required a series of patches to polish. But this is a first for the studio – Monster Hunter has never been released on the platform before (except for an MMO spin-off for Asia). Wilds, the team's next game, will release on PC on day one.

But at Rockstar, it's the opposite, things get worse over the years. In principle, the publisher has not yet confirmed that Grand Theft Auto 6 will have a PC version, leading to the saddest explanation. The company expected to make a double profit on the project: first with a console release, then with a PC release. Among the fans of the series, there are enough people who are ready to buy the same game twice.

This is a smart decision by Rockstar but at the same time it is quite insulting to PC gamers. The PC segment's market share in the gaming industry increased by 8% in 2023, while consoles increased by only 0.5%. Of course, they still have a larger market share, but a significant portion of the 28% console share belongs to the Nintendo Switch, a console that Rockstar rarely carries. Not to mention the proportion of people refusing to upgrade from PS4 to PS5 is surprisingly large.

If this trend continues, it seems like Rockstar has caught the slower horse. It's unlikely that Grand Theft Auto 6 will suffer much from this, but in the future, such a policy could expose the publisher to the same problems that caused Square Enix.