Summary
Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball has refuted a report that the console makers have secured an exclusive cloud streaming deal for GTA 6 at launch, which is noteworthy because the tech could provide a means to play the crime sim on PC prior to a native port arriving. The report which claimed Xbox had struck a deal for exclusive GTA 6 streaming rights came from The Verge, who pointed to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma having teased that Microsoft are getting to do something “no other platform holder is doing” during a recent all-hands meeting. The site cited sources familiar with the company’s plans as having pointed to this teaser as being about Xbox having landed the GTA 6 streaming deal. Since Xbox’s cloud streaming services can be used to stream games on PC, such a deal seemed like it could open up a way of playing GTA 6 on such devices prior to the launch of an official port. As of writing, Rockstar are still yet to confirm if or when such a port will arrive, though the expectation is that the game’ll be following its predecessors’ tracks onto PC at some point down the line. Streaming GTA 6 on PC via the cloud wouldn’t come with all of the graphical and performance bells and whistles a proper port will pack, but it’d be an option in the interim for those who fancied it. Ball was quick to pour cold water on that idea. “While the excitement for GTA 6 and Xbox is great to see, it has also led to some misreporting,” he posted. “We are looking forward to launching GTAVI on XBOX November 19, though the game will not be streaming exclusively or to PC.” There’s no obvious inherent technical reason why a streamed GTA 6 wouldn’t work on PC, which suggests that any exclusion of it from lists of devices which services allow the game to be streamed on at launch would be purely for business reasons. With no concrete date for a PC port as of yet, that’s a more frustrating position to put players in than it would be if, for example, they knew already that their choice was to play at launch on a different device or wait a year for the game to come to PC. It looks like it’d be move rooted solely in creating artificial scarcity to benefit console sales and ensure any PC version launching later has the allure of being the only legit way to play on that platform, not just an upgrade for those after extra fidelity or modding capability. I’ve reached out to Rockstar and Xbox for comment. As GTA 6’s console launch looms, Rockstar Games are currently embroiled in an employment tribunal hearing over their firing of 34 developers last year. The company have accused the fired staff of risking leaking info about the game, while the union representing the workers have accused Rockstar of union-busting. Read this next
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