Take-Two Hints At Future GTA VI PC Release

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has suggested that an announcement on a PC release for GTA VI will come in due time because "the right strategy for our business is to be where the consumer is".

Although Grand Theft Auto VI has only been announced on current generation consoles - PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S - it shouldn't come as any suprise that the game will eventually release on PC too. All of Rockstar's previous GTA games have made their way to PC in the months or years following the console release and it makes business sense to continue in the same manner.

During an online interview with TD Cowen, Strauss Zelnick was asked a number of questions about the new GTA game which have been transcribed below courtesy of Rockstar Intel.

Interview Transcript

Host: "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?"

Strauss Zelnick: "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.

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.

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."

Host: "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?"

Strauss Zelnick: "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."

Host: "If you look out, I know we’re not even at GTA VI yet, but thinking about…"

Strauss Zelnick: (Interrupts, jokingly) "...GTA 7?..."

Host: "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?"

Strauss Zelnick: "It is important to bear in mind that it’s not like Rockstar put out 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 think 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."

Thoughts

So there we have it. A PC release is inevitable but almost certainly won't come until the console versions have launched.

Take-Two are very proud of the success GTA has had in the video game world and have very high expectations that GTA VI will be "an amazing, perfect, video game" with Rockstar contining to provide "Live Service" gaming in the form of a new or updated version of GTA Online.

Above all, they expect the game will be worth all of the money they've invested in development and hope to make a tidy profit, ideally somewhere close to the $10 billion+ they've brought in from GTA V.