I don’t think a development that happened in the last few weeks has sped up a massive ship like Rockstar. Console sales reports are on a lag, but August was a decade+ low point for hardware sales due to how expensive they are, so the addressable market is still looking likely to be far lower than what Rockstar’s last two games had. Another good point that GamesBeat raised (solely conjecture, of course) is that the business of the online mode is different this time around. Roleplay servers are a big part of the appeal of GTAV, and on PC, that means people are enjoying that for free with no exposure to microtransactions on private servers. Rockstar hired those modders to roll that functionality into all versions of GTA6 Online this time around (this part isn’t conjecture), and there are a lot of opportunities to pull in those PC customers from the jump. In other words, they probably care less about people double dipping when the box price of the game pales compared to GTA Online money.
They didn’t for GTA5 or RDR2 either. I suspect there are a lot of reasons for that; more time to test the server infrastructure, time for people to play through the campaign without rushing so that it gets its time in the spotlight, and time for people to acquire the game and form a critical mass of players online. All guesses, but that’s what I’ve got.
I don’t think a development that happened in the last few weeks has sped up a massive ship like Rockstar. Console sales reports are on a lag, but August was a decade+ low point for hardware sales due to how expensive they are, so the addressable market is still looking likely to be far lower than what Rockstar’s last two games had. Another good point that GamesBeat raised (solely conjecture, of course) is that the business of the online mode is different this time around. Roleplay servers are a big part of the appeal of GTAV, and on PC, that means people are enjoying that for free with no exposure to microtransactions on private servers. Rockstar hired those modders to roll that functionality into all versions of GTA6 Online this time around (this part isn’t conjecture), and there are a lot of opportunities to pull in those PC customers from the jump. In other words, they probably care less about people double dipping when the box price of the game pales compared to GTA Online money.
I do find it really odds that they’re not releasing GTA online 2 or whatever they end up calling it at the same time as the GTA 6 release.
They didn’t for GTA5 or RDR2 either. I suspect there are a lot of reasons for that; more time to test the server infrastructure, time for people to play through the campaign without rushing so that it gets its time in the spotlight, and time for people to acquire the game and form a critical mass of players online. All guesses, but that’s what I’ve got.