Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick was directly asked at a recent financial report meeting: “Grand Theft Auto VI (Grand Theft Auto 6/Grand Theft Auto 6)” chose to be released on the console platform first, and the window period of the PC version was extended. Is it related to Sony’s non-exclusive agreement? His immediate answer was clear: no. There is only one reason, to take care of core consumers.
The PC platform has too many uncertainties that interfere with the core experience.
The PC platform inherently has too many fragments, differences in hardware specifications, cheating issues, piracy penetration, and the most troublesome issue for developers is page lag. For a work whose revenue goal is to “break historical records”, ensuring a clean launch in a controlled environment is a reasonable priority.
The stability of developed products is the core of decision-making
While there has been speculation that the move away from PC has something to do with Sony’s deal structure, Zelnick’s statement amounted to a formal denial of the idea. He emphasized that Rockstar’s top priority is to ensure that the first “Grand Theft Auto” on this new generation of consoles can be implemented perfectly, rather than spreading resources across the PC version that requires a lot of adaptation work.
But data shows that the consumption power of the PC group is no less than that of console users!
While the PC platform accounts for a significant share of overall game sales, the console version has always contributed more to revenue across Rockstar’s product line. This may be why the statement of “prioritizing core consumers” can be established in business logic.