Summary
A former Sony head has revealed thatGrand Theft Autowas a PlayStation 2 exclusive because of the Xbox. The executive spoke during a recent interview, where he acknowledged that Sony had been concerned about the coming Microsoft console, and that led to threeGTAgames being PS2-exclusive.
Grand Theft Auto 3was a massive success, but its overwhelming popularity came as a bit of a surprise to some members of the game development community. Though it was already an established series,GTA 3dramatically shook up gameplay, switching from a top-down view to third-person, and away from a level-based score system.GTA 3became one of the best-selling games on the PlayStation 2, and that’s due in part to this exclusivity deal.
In a recent interview withGamesIndustry.biz, former PlayStation Europe president Chris Deering spoke about the PlayStation 2 and Sony’s concerns over the then up-and-coming Xbox console. In advance of the Xbox’s launch, Deering said the company approached a few of its “favorite” third-party publishers and developers with an offer for a two-year exclusivity period. Take-Two was one of these publishers, and it agreed to the deal, locking down its next three games with the PlayStation family of consoles. As a result,GTA 3,Vice City, andSan Andreasall launched on the PlayStation 2 first, remainingsolely accessible on PlayStationand PC for the exclusivity period.
GTA Deal Worked Out Great for PlayStation and Take-Two
As Deering states, the deal was a good one for Take-Two, as the publisher “got a discount on the royalty they paid.“GTAlikely helped to sell PlayStation 2 consoles, while those who had already bought PS2 consoles were enticed to tryGTAas it began to explode in popularity. In the end, the aforementionedGTAtrilogy became three of the top five of the PS2’s best sellersover the course of its lifespan, withGTA 3coming in fifth,GTA: Vice Cityin third, andGTA: San Andreasin first.
While the games would eventually be released for the Xbox family of consoles, Xbox gamers had to wait to get their hands on them. Interestingly,GTA 6is currently slated to arrive for the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X/S at the same time, but no announcement has been made for aGTA 6PC release. It will almost surely reach that platform eventually, but for the moment, gamers have to wait and see when that will happen. While the PlayStation and Xbox family of systems continue to compete with each other, there’s practically no doubt that both consoles will see a massive influx of sales once the game finally launches on their platforms.
