Could potential AI clones of GTA VI force a quicker official port?

Yesterday, when reporting on emerging efforts to pipe the console version of GTA VI through a PC’s DLSS-powered Nvidia GPU, we mentioned in passing that PC players could instead just wait for the AI-assisted decompilation port that will no doubt be coming in short order. Now, a former Rockstar tech director says he thinks that exact threat could cause the developer to work faster on the official PC version of its soon-to-release crime/lifestyle simulator.

Obbe Vermeij hasn’t worked at Rockstar since 2009, but in a new interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, he recalled how artists for the PC version of the original top-down Grand Theft Auto were incensed when the console version squashed the game’s 256-color textures down to 16 colors for the PS1 release.

“So it always has been that sort of awkward relationship between PC and the console,” Vermeij said. “So in those days, it was like PC first and then console second, even though that didn’t really make much sense for the sales, because the PlayStation versions sold way better.”

Those sales caused Rockstar to pivot hard toward the console side of the business, with oft-delayed PC ports of its major games only hitting many months or even many years after their console counterparts. It’s a trend that Rockstar has stuck with even as many formerly console-focused game publishers have started treating the PC as an equally relevant platform and as the line between PCs and consoles itself has gotten much fuzzier in recent years.