GTA 6 Release Date News: Next Grand Theft Auto to launch with a game changing new feature? (Pic: Rockstar Games)
GTA 6 could have the most diverse Grand Theft Auto release ever made if the industry keeps progressing the way it currently is.
At the time of writing, there's huge expansion underway in the industry. Between new consoles and streaming services, video games are diverging but somehow becoming even more inclusive to cater to pretty much anyone and everyone who wants to play.
Yes, you can easily make a case that the next Grand Theft Auto game in the series will release on PS5 and Xbox Scarlett. At this point it seems like a given.
But hints that we could see future Rockstar developed games come to Google Stadia (including potentially GTA 6 in the future) illustrates this level of expansion.
Which might seem small but in a time when we can't get Rockstar to acknowledge if they will or will not be bothered to release Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC (they probably will) it appears a step in the right direction at least.
Even Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick has praised the console recently when talking to investors.
"You know the promise of being able to sign on to a service with virtually no barriers, without a box in between, and being able to play our games on any device whatsoever around the world, and to do it with low latency, well thats very compelling if that can be delivered, and the folks at Google minimally have said it will be delivered and will be delivered in relatively short order," Zelnick said at the time.
"Conceptually we want to be where the consumer is, and well support new entrants and we are a believer in streaming services.
“Again, you know we need to have business models that make sense for us. So far, were pretty optimistic."
Zelnick's comments are illuminating and might give fans hope that GTA 6 would also be released on Stadia's Netflix style streaming subscription model.
But even if Rockstar decides Stadia isn't the platform of choice to deliver Grand Theft Auto 6 to the masses, there's already another service which could potentially revolutionise the next big Grand Theft Auto release.
Microsoft's new Xbox xCloud technology.
Over in LA Xbox has been putting their new cloud streaming services to the test with the public at E3.
A report by arstechnica suggests that the company are using a Samsung Galaxy S8, mounted to an Xbox One controller connected via USB and giving fans the chance to play games like Gears of War 4 and Halo 5: Guardians.
The thing is though, these games are, of course, not actually running on the phone. They're not even running on Xbox servers in the same building.
We also took Forza Horizon for a spin on xCloud at E3 (Pic: Daily Star)
They're running on a Microsoft server that's over 400 miles away and the results, so far, sound pretty impressive.
"Playing Halo 5 on that setup felt responsive to my fingers, running at an apparent 60fps. We didn't have a high-end, custom-built latency testing rig to measure things precisely. But we did have an iPhone with a slow-motion camera to do some quick visual testing.
"In our video tests, the time between tapping the A button and seeing a response on the smartphone screen took 16 frames of a 240fps video (or 67 milliseconds) across three subsequent tests. That's almost imperceptibly slower than the 63ms (milliseconds) input latency Digital Foundry measured on the Xbox One version of Halo 5 in 2017 tests."
Imagine, GTA or GTA Online on your mobile device anywhere you want all powered, seamlessly, by cloud technology.
We've already seen the impact of mobile gaming on titles like Fortnite which has been raking in the coppers.
Sensor Tower reported earlier this year Epic had officially grossed half a billion dollars worldwide on iOS, averaging $1.53 million per day.
Now imagine what GTA Online could achieve or how many Shark cards the game could sell if the game wasn't confined to your traditional console box at home.
GTA 6 might not have been announced yet, it might not arrive for at least two years time, but some of the games biggest and best potential features are already being shaped by our industry in 2019.
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