Original Coverage & Source Attribution: www.thesixthaxis.com
A bit of overexcitement for GTA 6 has “led to some misreporting”, as Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball has stamped out reporting that the company had secured exclusive rights to stream Grand Theft Auto VI.
“While the excitement for GTA 6 and Xbox is great to see,” Ball said, “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.”
This is all coming from reporting by Tom Warren of The Verge, who cited a town hall meeting by Xbox boss Asha Sharma, who said cryptically that they are doing something that “no other platform holder is doing”. With sources familiar with the matter apparently then saying that this related to a game streaming deal.
Warren has updated the story with Ball’s clarification, suggesting that this might simply mean that Xbox is limiting access to streaming to Xbox consoles. This would theoretically allow Xbox One owners to stream to their last gen consoles, which could be huge when buying a current gen console is getting more and more expensive. This would, to the best of knowledge, be t first time that Xbox has split their streaming platform in this way.
We do know that Microsoft and Take Two signed a new new publishing agreement last week, specifically related to “Xbox-compatible games on all Xbox devices,” and this could mean anything, from giving special revenue share to Take Two, to this mooted streaming deal.
Without an official announcement, it’s also very possible that Take Two is holding GTA 6 back from streaming entirely and this is all speculation. Xbox Cloud Gaming does allow you to stream many purchased games with various Game Pass subscriptions, though being a part of this programme is at the discretion of the publisher. Xbox recently put time limits in place on cloud gaming, with the intention to open it up for a pay-as-you-go option in the near future.
Whatever the case, it’s sad trombone sounds for PC-only gamers who had got their hopes up.
