We all fondly remember the era when Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, and San Andreas were the crown jewels of the PS2 lineup. What some might not realize, though, is that PlayStation secured these exclusives as a strategic move, driven by a touch of fear regarding the Xbox’s impending arrival on the gaming scene.
Nowadays, GTA is a name known across multiple platforms, but many still associate it strongly with PlayStation. This connection stems back to when Rockstar gained significant traction with the PS2 releases of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas. Curiously, these titles were not Sony’s exclusives by mere coincidence; instead, they were part of a deliberate strategy due to concerns about the original Xbox making its debut. In a recent conversation with GamesIndustry.biz, former PlayStation Europe head Chris Deering—yes, the same guy who once quipped about laid-off developers taking a year-long beach break—shed light on the decision from PlayStation’s past. He reminisced about their decision to secure exclusivity rights for those standout GTA titles, a move that now appears incredibly shrewd in hindsight.
Recalling the situation, Deering shared, “The prospect of Xbox entering the market made us uneasy,” he admitted candidly. “We recognized that exclusivity was crucial in many sectors, like sports broadcasting with Sky TV. Just as the Xbox launch was looming around Christmas, a few of us approached our trusted third-party game creators and publishers. We proposed a deal: keep your next-gen games exclusive to PlayStation for two years, and we’ll make it worth your while.”
This strategic conversation led to a significant deal with Take-Two for the upcoming trilogy of Grand Theft Auto games. At that time, the potential impact of GTA 3 wasn’t as evident, primarily because previous entries in the series followed a top-down perspective, quite different from what the groundbreaking PS2 iteration delivered.
Deering also reflected on the fortunate turn of events for PlayStation, given the unprecedented success of the series, musing over an alternate reality where GTA 3 may have become an Xbox exclusive. Imagine that—checking Rockstar’s social channels every day for news about GTA 6 might be a very different experience if history had taken that path. Worth noting is that the classic Xbox lagged significantly, selling just 24 million units compared to the PS2’s impressive 160 million. Even if GTA had gone multiplatform, it would likely have thrived regardless, though PlayStation’s own legacy could have been markedly different. Just goes to show how pivotal those decisions were back then, doesn’t it?
