Rockstar Games hack shows why GTA 6 isn't releasing on PC and console simultaneously

Rockstar Games recently suffered a security breach involving one of its third-party services, and the hacking group behind it has now released the stolen data online after Rockstar declined to pay the ransom.

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While we cannot independently verify whether the numbers released by the hacking group are 100% legitimate, they do paint a very interesting picture of Rockstar's finances, particularly how much the developer earns from GTA Online. TweakTown's Derek Strickland has done a fantastic job accumulating all of the data into clean charts for viewing, and there we can see just how small a percentage GTA 5 players on PC spend on Shark Cards, which generate Rockstar $8.5 million per week, according to the leaked finances.

The data states GTA Online players on PC only account for 3% of the GTA Online platform breakdown by "weekly bookings", which directly correlates with the number of weekly players. Weekly active users on PC were down to 894,621, accounting for $264,273 in weekly bookings, compared to PlayStation 5 at 3,474,021 players and $4,476,346 in weekly bookings.

This discrepancy could be viewed as a clear indicator as to why Rockstar hasn't mentioned anything regarding a PC release for Grand Theft Auto 6, or why the company has traditionally been console-first with its new releases - simply, PC gamers aren't making the developer enough money to warrant the development effort of a simultaneous platform release. If these figures are accurate, it explains why Rockstar is nailing down the console version of GTA 6 before beginning work on the PC version, and why the company has stuck to that same strategy with previous releases.

Unfortunately, if you are a GTA fan on PC who was holding out hope that Rockstar would release GTA 6 on consoles and PCs at the same time, despite Rockstar's track record with releases, these figures could be quite disheartening.