On Tuesday, October 6, it was reported that Xbox had secured exclusivity as the place to cloud stream GTA 6 on PC. However, since then, Xbox has confirmed that the report isn’t correct and that the game will be streaming exclusively to PC.
The initial report came from The Verge. Following Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s internal briefing, in which she said the gaming division was doing something that “no other platform holder is doing” for GTA 6, The Verge reported that they’d heard from people familiar with Xbox’s plans that the statement was a tease of their PC streaming exclusivity for Rockstar’s upcoming game.
That would have been a huge win for Microsoft. Since the game is only launching on console on November 19, with the PC version expected to come at a later date, cloud streaming via Xbox’s service would have been the only way to play the game on PC. That would have meant people who only play their games on PC did, in fact, have a way to jump into Los Santos at launch.
It wouldn’t have allowed for any modding options, performance benefits, or changes you can normally make when you play a game on PC, but it would have been better than nothing or having to spend almost $1,000 on a new console.
Unfortunately, Matthew Ball, Xbox’s Chief Strategy Officer, has since posted on X to deny The Verge’s report. He wrote: “While the excitement for GTA 6 and Xbox is great to see, it has also led to some misreporting. We are looking forward to launching GTA 6 on Xbox November 19, though the game will not be streaming exclusively or to PC.”
That post suggests that Xbox won’t be the only way to stream GTA 6, and also that you won’t be able to stream the game to PC. Rockstar clearly doesn’t want the game to be playable on PC at launch, at least not natively, so it’d be a surprise for them to allow an exclusive streaming deal.
For now, we’ll have to wait and see what Sharma was talking about in relation to GTA 6. The GTA 6 release date is set for Thursday, November 19, so there’s not long to wait now.