GTA 6 skipping PC at launch not due to PlayStation deal, but because Rockstar focuses on "the core consumer," Take-Two CEO says

As has become tradition with Rockstar's games, GTA 6 will only be available on consoles at launch, with no PC version on the immediate horizon. Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Rockstar parent company Take-Two, says that's because the devs want to focus on their core audience, and it has nothing to do with any marketing deal from Sony.

Jason Schreier of Bloomberg posed the question of whether a reported marketing deal with Sony was behind the decision to have GTA 6 skip PC at launch. "No," Zelnick says. "I mean, historically Rockstar's gone to console first."

Rumors of a PlayStation marketing deal for GTA 6 go back years, and that kind of partnership makes sense. The launch of GTA 6 is expected to convince a whole lot of last-gen holdouts to upgrade to current console hardware, and it's easy to see why Sony would want to associate the launch with PS5.

The idea of Sony making a deal to keep GTA 6 off of PC, however? That I don't get. GTA 6 is also coming to Xbox Series X/S, and for all its troubles Microsoft's console is still Sony's closest competitor in the market. Why pay away a PC version when the Xbox edition is still looming?

Either way, Zelnick says there's a much simpler reason for GTA 6 to skip PC. "Rockstar always starts on console because I think with regard to a release like that you're judged by serving the core," he says. "Like really serving the core consumer. If your core consumer isn't there, if they're not served first and best, you kind of don't hit your other consumers."

That explanation is likely to ring pretty in the ears of PC players, since the vast majority of third-party publishers – including Take-Two itself – manage to launch simultaneously across PC and console without any apparent disservice to the "core consumer."

As Zelnick himself notes, PC is a major part of the business these days. When NBA 2K started doing PC editions in the late '00s, he says those versions might make up around 5% of sales. "Now with regard to a big title, PC can be 45, 50% of the sales," he adds. I guess Take-Two is counting on the GTA 6 hype staying hot enough to get that half of the sales another year or two down the line.

GTA 6 PC release remains unconfirmed, but Rockstar leak reveals that could be because GTA Online gets 97% of its cash from consoles.