After much speculation, Rockstar has finally provided PC gamers with a release date for GTA V on their favoured platform. True, it’s after the publisher pushes out enhanced versions for the PS4 and Xbox One, but Rockstar has offered non-console players some explanation as to why they’ll have to wait a couple of months for their fun.
A sticked comment at the top of Rockstar’s original announcement provides the following balm:
We’re glad to see so many of you are excited for the upcoming release of the new versions of GTAV and we look forward to sharing more details with you soon. We are also incredibly excited to be bringing GTAV to the PC, but the game requires a little more development time in order to ensure that it is as amazing and polished as possible. Please do stay tuned as we reveal new features and information about all the new versions in the weeks ahead.
To be fair, anything released for PC is going to require more love and care than its living room-bound counterparts, it’s just a shame we’ll miss out on playing it over Christmas. That said, I doubt there will be a shortage of games to play in the coming months, with October in particular utterly packed.
Grand Theft Auto V Release Dates and Exclusive Content Details for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC [Rockstar, via Reddit]
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30 responses to “Rockstar’s Unsurprising Reason For GTA V PC Delay”
I’m assuming they want us to triple dip.
They’ve been talking with EA.
Happily. 😉
If the game was released on PC the same date it come out i would have brought it. But since it is going to be released so late alot of hype is gone and wont be touching it at all. i have a feeling that the game will be pirated more then it is brought due to the late release date of the game
That and people feeling they’re entitled to a copy seeing as they have already bought it on the ps3/4 xbox/xbone or both.
It’ll be bought, but I’m sure Rockstar can leave in something nice for pirates/
Probably, but people are always bitching and moaning for good PC ports of games, and if Rockstar are putting in the effort to make GTAV on PC worth the wait pirating it would be a slap in the face – and if it’s too extreme we’ll get to enjoy another decade of shitty console ports.
Hopefully the online system on PC will be good enough to convince people to purchase
Funny thing, GTA IV was released on PC 8 months after the console releases and it was unplayable for many.
No, releasing it a year late is a slap in the face for PC gamers. Why would they pay full price for a game that they finished already on a console 1 year earlier?
Downvote for using overly abused idiom.
That’s a slap in the face for Stevo…
Translation: If we release the PC version the same time as the PS4 and Xbox One versions, piracy will kill our profit margin as less people will buy the console versions and will pirate the PC version instead.
Responses like this bring up questions:
Is there a significant proportion of the market that owns both a PC capable of playing GTAV and a Xbone/PS4?
Of that proportion are there a significant number who would choose to pirate a PC copy rather than buy for either platform?
Is this sub-proportion significant enough to delay release of the PC version?
Problem is that answering these questions won’t provide an edgy narrative.
This isn’t just about GTA V on PC, there is a hell of a lot of games coming out in the next few months, a lot of them are console exclusive (with PC versions being delayed until later) and people are going to have to decide what they spend there money on, games on Xbox One and PS4 cannot be pirated (yet) so people wanting games on those platforms have no choice but to buy them.
PC games can be pirated and when people have a limited amount of money to spend it’s awfully tempting to pirate a game that you cannot afford to buy especially if the game is not a new one like GTA V.
This is why they are delaying the game because they know given the choice between a new game that has not been out before (Far Cry 4, Dragon Age 3, The Crew, Sunset Overdrive, etc, etc) and a game that has been out for just over a year already, people with limited income and the means to pirate will buy the new game and pirate the old one.
Yes there are considering how many games are coming out in the next few months.
Yes it is, if people want to spend there money on newer games then it is best to release the PC version later so that they can make some money on the PS4 and Xbox One versions.
Had they released all three versions at the same time with the amount of other games coming out around the same time, piracy would have killed there profit margin, but as it stands come November people only have two choices buy it or don’t buy it, no one will be getting it for free.
I can’t believe you answered those questions, the point went straight over your head.
online passes aside its considerably easier to pirate console game
When was the last time a PS4 and Xbox One game was pirated?
The PS4 was jailbroken 5 days after release, there’s a pretty vibrant pirate market for it.
To be fair gtaiv on pc runs like a turd. They probably don’t want to make the same mistake. Picture that, a rockstar pc port that runs ok.
Also, I own pc and a ps4/ Wiiu. I would have bought this on pc for mods, I may still. But I would have to test the game first to make sure it’s a better port than Gta iv. I would probably have to pirate then because, let’s face it, demos are largely dead.
Also, although ps3 required a little more work, pirating on the x360 and ps3 was pretty easy. If someone wanted to pirate on them, they would. Check the numbers if you don’t believe me.
If you’re going to link to an article about all the October releases, you may want to make sure they’re all still actually coming on October…
So GTA V for the PC will come out the same day as Dying Light…. intresting
And the console version comes put the same day as Far Cry 4
I know which I’ll be getting!
Far Cry 3 obviously… Rockstar just neglects their PC players.
PC version is delayed to be “as amazing and polished as possible” but don’t be surprised if it’s as broken as GTA IV was on release after it’s 8month delay on PC.
Last time Watch Dogs delay the pc release due to nvidia’s involvement in planting source code in the game in order to descale the performance of AMD card………..now GTA V…..again?????????
“…non-console players some explanation as to why they’ll have to wait a couple of months for their fun.” We’ve already waited a lot longer than that.
If it its going to take them that long to alter an interface to change from a limited set of controller buttons, to a larger set of buttons on a mouse/keyboard interface, then I can only think they have one intern working on this as part of some highschool project, and I expect the quality to match other “stellar” PC ports. Is it just me, or does it seem when a game is made for PC, then ported to console, the results are much better all round?
edit: typos
I played a fair bit on 360 when it released. Most of that time was spent in the story mode exploring the map and general GTA shenanigans. Had a lot of fun.
I afforded only a little bit of time to the multiplayer and back then there was plenty of fun to be had but ultimately I grew tired of it.
After several months of not playing GTAV I am more and more eager to get it for PC but I also have absolutely no problems waiting until late January for a better quality build.
I already know the game is fun and I don’t really have any hankering to play the story through again (although I most likely will anyway), so waiting is easy when I stack up all the other games I have to play against one I am already familiar with.
Only an idiot would think that porting a game to PC takes 2 years. I expect one hell of an optimization then.
Sigh.
I *was* excited to see this come to the PC & the constant delays are just eating away at it. Chances are that I’ll probs end up picking up another game between now and the end of January and then GTA5 will end up being a possible afterthought maybe during a Steam sale.
To maximise profits in the inferior and redundant hardware market, I think game and console manufacturers should collude, err, I mean collaborate, to design and release a different type of console for each new game, a console which is highly incompatible with any other game except the one it was designed for.