Take-Two CEO Addresses GTA 6 on PC… Sort of?

Ever since the long awaited official announcement of Grand Theft Auto 6, a few key questions have dominated the rampant speculation among the fandom.

Questions like how the map will look, how long and what the story will be, which voice actors lend their talents to the protagonists. However, possibly the most burning question is whether the game will hit PC.

Now, Take-Two’s CEO has… not really answered that at all.

Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive, was recently asked about the future of Grand Theft Auto 6 on PC. This occurred at the TD Cowen 52nd Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, an event approximately no gamer knows about because it isn’t a gaming press event – but we know Take-Two generally avoids those anyway!

Some context: Grand Theft Auto 6 was announced just for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S for now, mirroring how its predecessor GTA V was announced only for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 initially. It took that game a year to hit the then-next-gen consoles, the PS4 and Xbox One, and another year before it made it to PC.

Staggering releases across platforms seemingly worked out just swimmingly for Rockstar, with many players double or triple dipping. This probably contributed to GTA 5’s meteoric rise in sales, which continues to this day in defiance of all market trends and logic.

The current, ninth generation of consoles is nearing its 4th anniversary, and will be hitting 5 by the time GTA VI is released now that we know the ballpark release window.

Six to seven years is a good bet for the life cycle of a console generation, so the next Grand Theft Auto game is very likely deliberately poised to launch in the dusk of the current one – with a “next-gen” re-release to follow a year or so after.

Where does PC fit into all of this? A port hasn’t been announced, but its generally considered inevitable. GTA as a franchise began on PC, and aside of mobile spin-offs that never made it to consoles either, no GTA game has dodged the platform – even if it took some extra years to get there. What, then, does an executive say when he cannot confirm or deny something that isn’t revealed but guaranteed to come?

“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.” is what, apparently.

This shockingly wise piece of insight is what you get when you ask an unanswerable question. Zelnick does go on to elaborate about Rockstar’s past approach to platform selection for upcoming games though.

“But Rockstar has an approach to platforms which we’ve seen before. And they will 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. Okay?”

That “Okay?” at the end really underscores the uncomfortable nature of the whole exchange. We know GTA 6 will hit PC, whoever asked this question knows it, Zelnick knows it – but we all also know that the weird corporate landscape of AAA gaming is weirdly fixated on keeping secrets and only ever discussing anything if it has been officially announced.

We weren’t getting a straight answer either way.

It is a borderline nonsensical answer that jumbles together all the non-committal corporate doublespeak out there, but we also cannot blame Zelnick; this conference wasn’t the forum for an announcement about a PC port, the parent company CEO isn’t the spokesperson for an announcement about a PC port, and we probably won’t get any confirmation until after the game launches on consoles anyway.

So there you have it folks; the official Take-Two stance regarding GTA 6 on PC is “no comment”.