Games Inbox: When will GTA 6 be released on PC?

The Monday letters page thinks the PC version of GTA 6 will be out sooner rather than later, as one reader looks forward to the first Zelda movie trailer.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Spring release
I’ve seen a lot of talk this weekend of the idea that the PC version of GTA 6 will be out sooner rather than later. I don’t see any way it could be out this year, or they wouldn’t have mentioned, but it seems roughly six months is the time being thrown around, as the gap between the console and PC version.

That would make it somewhere around May, which is one of Rockstar Games’ favourite times of year to release new games. I looked up the quickest a PC version has been released, in modern times, which was GTA 4 in seven months. I think the longest was GTA 5, which for some reason took 19 months.

Even without these rumours I can’t see them taking that long again. The only thing that makes me think it might take longer than six months is when GTA Online 2, or whatever it’ll be, starts on console. They’ll want to make sure that’s okay for a few months before the PC version comes along. In fact, that’s probably one of the reasons there’s a delay.
Hammeriron

Business relationship
I hope Grand Theft Auto 6 offers game-changing moral choices. If I recall correctly, didn’t Grand Theft Auto 4 ask players to make a major choice with one mission? Niko had to choose between two targets, and depending on which decision you made the game’s plot branched in some way?

Also, I can’t help thinking back to the third game, which started with the silent protagonist being sold out by his girlfriend. In the forthcoming game, what if we get to turn Lucia against Jason, or the other way around? There’s no honour amongst thieves apparently.
Michael Veal

GC: It seems you can treat the Lucia and Jason relationship as purely business, which does seem to leave the option open for things to go sour.

Play Anywhere sometimes
So Xbox brings in 15 hours a month max cloud gaming for Game Pass Ultimate and only five hours for the basic subscription. But doesn’t that mean the Play Anywhere without a console on your phone, and deals with TV companies for streaming through the TV, will also be capped as cloud gaming?

Making yet another farce of Play Anywhere, they really don’t help themselves. I understand Nvidia and Google have brought in charges but when you are offering a service brought to a TV makes it pointless… madness.
TWO MACKS
PS: What would you that mean for the handheld devices they sell? Surely biggest own goal ever if charging for that on expensive handheld devices.

GC: There are no exceptions that we’re aware of. Their argument seems to be that very few people use it that much anyway.

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Next gen prep
The news from Microsoft the other day, about limiting the amount of hours we get to stream for free on the different account tiers, is clearly a hint towards what Microsoft is planning for next gen, isn’t it? The number that use the service at the moment are almost pointlessly small, certainly given Xbox’s current active userbase, so it’s not going to make any difference whatsoever to their balance sheet.

What it does allow Microsoft to do is normalise paying for cloud gaming access before they announce their next gen plans: presumably one standard style powerful console at £1,200 and one empty shell of a console with a controller and a tiny hard drive that only streams games for, oh, let’s say a silly fee of £99 or whatever.

This will be their way around the current component cost crisis and allows them to slowly manage consumer expectation around what they should expect from a streaming only future.
Matthew Hardcastle

GC: That seem a plausible scenario, but we’re not sure charging extra for cloud gaming is going to work out the way they think.

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Ticking clock
I’ve just bought my son a Samsung TV that lets you play Game Pass on it, without the need of a console. Does that mean from November, if he’s on the cheapest tier, he will get, say, five hours of play a month? Because if that is the case he won’t be getting Game Pass. If I’m paying for a service I want it available 24/7, after all that’s what I’m paying for.

I mean every time you fail a mission you won’t be moaning you have failed, you will be moaning you have got four hours left and it will take you 30 minutes to get back to where you were and you won’t be wanting to nip and get a drink or even go to the toilet because them times you’re not there will be using your allowance of play.

Xbox really haven’t thought this through. Phil Spencer got it wrong when he increased prices; this new boss has lowered prices by a few pound, took away day one on some games, and then said your on a timer when gaming. They really do love hurting themselves when they’re on the ropes. As for Game Pass thing, I’ll buy him a PlayStation 5 console for Xmas on Black Friday.
David

GC: Surely pressing pause stops the clock.

47 years, man and boy
I’ve wrote in before, and been a gamer since 1979-ish, when my dad came home with Pong. From then it’s been Pong to Atari to Spectrum. From Spectrum to Amiga (plus rubbish CD32 and Microcosm and Rise Of The Robots) to PS1. I’m now on a PS5 pro with an extra disc drive purchase. It’s fab.

It’s exactly how I imagined games to look when I was looking at Gunfright (Ultimate Play the Game and playing a cowboy. Now we have Red Dead Redemption 2 and all the other fabulous things like Black Flag, James Bond, Indiana Jones, to name my faves. Exactly what you wanted in games when you were an eight-year-old starting out in games.

It’s been a leap of Star Trek proportions. Graphics, production, sound, quality? Unimaginable when I was enthralled by my Amiga. The industry today is disappearing up its own behind, run by people who have no care, passion, or grace for the people who make the games and in the end, give them the profit they so desire. Yet they treat them like a piece of chewing gum on their shoe.

Only money and shareholders come into their thinking and it’s a shame for so many people who have invested in this hobby and pastime. What a waste. I spent nearly a grand almost two years ago to now be told that my console will be obsolete in two years?! I am 52 and not going any further with consoles, that’s it. PlayStation 6, 7, 8. Xbox Gonk or whatever, no thank you. Digital only? No thank you. I’ve now made sure every game that I buy is on disc. Thank you CeX.

I would also like to thank you Gamecentral because I have always, every day, read your pages. I trust your reviews and love your content. Please don’t stop.
Indiegaz (PSN ID)
PS: My kids have Nintendo Switches, that’s a different kettle of fish.
PPS: Since I was able to save up and buy a Spectrum magazine from Martins, that had a tape of Road Runner (Acme) on it, every game I have ever bought since then has been something I can have in my hand, right up to the new Assassin’s Creed Black Flag remake. It’s sad that in a few years there will be no ownership of the games you work hard to pay for.

Equally authentic
So I just watched a video about Project Milo, I’d completely forgotten about that, but it got me thinking, with AI being so advanced nowadays would something like that be possible now and would there even be a market for it?

I’ve always seen AI being perfect for non-player character dialogue in games (never expected it to be used for artwork). I know everyone at GC is pretty anti-AI in games but what does everyone else think? And how would you use it if you was a developer?
P B

GC: Considering Project Milo was a complete scam we’re sure modern AI (which has more in common with autocorrect than true AI) would be able to replicate it very accurately.

Uncommon sense
I generally agree with Cranston’s assessment in their weekend feature, about next gen PlayStation and Xbox.

To embellish the points made, it would make sense moving forward if, ignoring Xbox as most people will, Sony releases a new console concept that ditches numerical branding to signal a necessary shift in how they approach new iterations.

Calling it PlayStation 6 can only mean more powerful, which makes them hostage to uncompetitive price points and, going with the territory as few will be able to afford it, no compelling games to justify owning one. This generation is bad enough. If they stay true to form, I predict now that after the console bombs there will not be a PlayStation 7, with Sony pulling out of the industry altogether.

The alternative is an inevitable digital-only device roughly as powerful as the PS5 Pro with a smaller, slicker form factor selling for less than or roughly the same as the current PlayStation 5. As component prices generally will be cheaper, this will offset the rising cost of RAM chips. As it will be entirely backwards compatible, the current crop of consoles will be discontinued.

It will sell on the basis of its design, a few low cost gimmicks and the fact you will not be able to buy a PlayStation 5. Eventually those who own a PlayStation 5 will need a replacement regardless.

This would provide developers with a long term perspective on game development, enabling them to work with current technology which, through experience, will mean they can reduce the time to make new software for it. If they have to adjust to another more powerful hardware, few will survive the transition.

It makes some sense for Sony to release a premium priced handheld that can play PlayStation 5 games, not to compete with Nintendo – which I do not think they can, given the latter’s low spec approach, experience and mobile friendly killer IP – that targets a niche market. Either that or something cheaper designed for playing indie software.

I do not recall whether Sony has stated that they are developing a ‘PlayStation 6’ or merely a next generation console. Either way, it cannot be assumed that the next one will necessarily be more powerful.

While a sensible approach to the many issues a next generation console raises, I have absolutely no faith in Sony pursuing this more sensible and sustainable route.
Ciara

GC: Sony hasn’t used the phrase PlayStation 6 themselves, but then they didn’t use the name PlayStation 5 until after the console had already been revealed.

Inbox also-rans
I love that when Nintendo do finally announce the Directs people want they schedule them one day after the other. Talk about fast and feast. I’d worry if Nintendo were ever normal though, I think being weird is just the price you pay for good games.
Benjy Dog

That 40th anniversary Zelda Direct is blatantly going to have the first trailer, or at least some clips, for the Zelda movie in it. Can’t wait to see it, but I’m very wary.
Onibee

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The small print
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