this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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Naturally. Rockstar likes to resell their titles no less than Bethesda. They will sell it to you on PS5 and series x/s, then again on PS6 and whatever Xbox will be around. Then probably Nintendo platform, finally PC.
This way they maximize the amount of times some people will buy the same game, each time with minimal quality upgrade.
Same as their previous titles. It's not that they didn't learn. They have the numbers and know very well what they're doing.
imo buying a copy for one platform should entitle to play on every platform it is released on. The crucial aspects of the work are the same. adapting to different hardwares and making controls for gamepads and mouse and keyboard only plays a small part in the total effort. Also you can play with a controller on pc in most cross platform games.
When I buy a new set of tires for my truck, I don't get a free set of tires for my car as well.
Tires cost materials and labor to manufacture, but digital games cost nothing to copy.
True, but you create a game for system A, it's not going to work with system B or C, without additional work required.
Sure, but GTA 6 is 100% already working on PC. Not just because they develop the game on PC, or because they're building on top of the RDR2 engine (which is already ported to PC), but because they planned to support PC from the beginning, and that type of engine work usually gets ironed out early during development or in pre-production.
I was just pointing out the flaw in your tire analogy though. TBH I'm not saying they should give free copies to people who bought it on other platforms. That's unprecedented for giant publishers like this. But I am pissed that they're delaying the PC version since you can be sure it's a calculated plan to ensure PC gamers buy the game twice. They collected enough analytics and surveys to know that a significant amount of GTA5 PC gamers also own a next-gen console. It's all very nefarious.
It runs on their specific hardware under specific situations, not any PC. I am just pointing out the flaw in your en-tire logic.
I actually have experience porting games and engines to consoles. If it runs on a development PC (likely Windows), they have the build system and platform layer implemented, which is the hardest part. Porting the content is also an important step, but really only for consoles, which usually have limited memory and power.
Typically the only problem with "PC ports" today is when the game wasn't designed around mouse/keyboard, or when the devs didn't make an effort to optimize it on consumer specs (although nowadays console architecture isn't too different from PCs so there are more optimizations that work across platforms). Another potential problem is when the game gets a lot of last minute hacks to fix bugs in order to ship on a console and those hacks don't survive a platform transition, then the publisher just tells them to ship as is since there's no certification process on PC. Basically, the problems are almost always logistical/business decisions due to a lazy/cheap publisher.
None of that is going to apply to this game. Rockstar has always intended to ship and fully support PC from the beginning. They had the technology, the talent, the incentive, and the time to do it. The most realistic explanation (IMO) for the PC delay is that they're trying to double-dip.
That's not how game development using an engine works... RAGE likely compiles code for at minimum a majority of modern computer hardware with next to no tweaking, and probably the same with Xbox & PlayStation consoles.
Most game engines used on large projects generally are made to handle as much of a variety of hardware as possible with little to no changes in the code – if you make a game using Unreal Engine or Unity for example it will almost certainly be able to work on Xbox, Playstation, and most PCs just fine. Most of the performance optimization for different hardware can then be offloaded to the engine. It's likely the same with RAGE.
Valve's steamplay already gives you access to win/mac/linux versions with one purchase so its not like its unheard of.