In May, Zelnick told Bloomberg that Rockstar "always starts on console because I think with regard to a release like that you’re judged by serving the core. Like really serving the core consumer. If your core consumer isn’t there, if they’re not served first and best, you kind of don’t hit your other consumers.”
Can someone translate that into English for me, because I can’t understand it. It sounds like he’s saying PC players aren’t served if console players aren’t served first, which doesn’t make sense.
He’s saying that he believes the core customer base - i.e. the people who will gladly throw money at Rockstar even if they send a literal box of horseshit to the players instead of the game they ordered - is on console.
And he would be right based on past releases - GTA V has ~60% sales on PlayStation, ~38% on Xbox and ~2% on PC.
Except… GTA V was also a PlayStation/Xbox exclusive on release, taking nearly two years for the PC release. ANYONE who wanted to play the game HAD to buy a console even if they had a perfectly working PC to use… And hardcore fans bought the console - most likely a PS4 - just to play GTA V.
From there, survivorship bias kicks in and you get execs thinking all the next gen players are on console, so they further push for it. And GTA fans will go and buy console because they want to play the game on day 1.
I took it as he was saying “we want to make sure it doesn’t suck on console before we release it on PC, because console is traditionally our core market.”
Can someone translate that into English for me, because I can’t understand it. It sounds like he’s saying PC players aren’t served if console players aren’t served first, which doesn’t make sense.
He’s saying that he believes the core customer base - i.e. the people who will gladly throw money at Rockstar even if they send a literal box of horseshit to the players instead of the game they ordered - is on console.
And he would be right based on past releases - GTA V has ~60% sales on PlayStation, ~38% on Xbox and ~2% on PC.
Except… GTA V was also a PlayStation/Xbox exclusive on release, taking nearly two years for the PC release. ANYONE who wanted to play the game HAD to buy a console even if they had a perfectly working PC to use… And hardcore fans bought the console - most likely a PS4 - just to play GTA V.
From there, survivorship bias kicks in and you get execs thinking all the next gen players are on console, so they further push for it. And GTA fans will go and buy console because they want to play the game on day 1.
Translation:
I took it as he was saying “we want to make sure it doesn’t suck on console before we release it on PC, because console is traditionally our core market.”
“We don’t give a shit about PC because the bulk of our whales are on console. Now give me and my punchable chin money!”