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Is Rockstar Games about to end content updates for the PS4 and Xbox One versions of GTA Online? This has been a question the GTAO community has been asking for quite some time now. In this article we’re going to go over why it is a realistic possibility.
We are now in the tenth year for GTA V/GTA Online as well as the PS4 and Xbox One. The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of GTA Online stopped receiving updates just a year after the release of the PS4 and Xbox One. Rockstar’s reasoning for this was published in a statement to Kotaku:
“WE HAVE CONTINUED TO OPTIMIZE THE ENTIRE GAME OVER TIME IN ORDER TO SQUEEZE AS MUCH MEMORY AS WE POSSIBLY COULD OUT OF THE LAST-GENERATION HARDWARE AND AT SOME POINT, CONTINUING TO ADD CONTENT FOR THOSE SYSTEMS COULD CAUSE THE RISK OF INSTABILITY TO THE GAME OVERALL.”
Whilst GTA V did not launch on those already underpowered consoles until 2014, they’ve had nine years of content updates. That’s nearly a decade’s worth of content spanning all kinds of sections for GTA Online. The PS4 and Xbox One only have so much remaining memory before Rockstar will not be able to add anymore, much like the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.
The growing list of GTA Online content updates
New and improved versions of GTA V and GTA Online released for the latest consoles, the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, last year. This new hardware gives the developers far more resources to work with whilst the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series is in the works. Performance of these new versions have been very good allowing for 60FPS, ray tracing, 4K and more fidelity. Creating content for the Xbox One, One S, One X, PS4, PS4 Pro and the PC is a lot; adding three more consoles into the pool even more work for the teams.
With the huge success of GTA V and GTA Online for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, many people have wondered when not if Rockstar will drop support for the last gen of consoles. The PS5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles are far exceeding sales compared to their predecessors in the game time period from release so the argument “no one has next gen yet” is not accurate. Some regions still have limited supply but others have seen widespread PS5 units instore. This is proven with GTA V selling more copies each month over the last few months.
Where is the end of updates speculation coming from?
Where is the end of updates speculation coming from?
In Rockstar’s latest newswire post for an event week, the studio mentioned something that peaked the interest of curious fans. After they talked about potential upcoming balance changes they stated “We will share more details on this as well as other fine-tuning efforts and service updates soon.” What could these “service updates” be? Cutting off updates to the prior generation of consoles? This is purely speculation but something to think about.
As mentioned earlier in the article, community members have become increasingly speculative over the future of GTA Online for PS4 and Xbox One. Players have noticed far more frequent performance issues on those consoles when playing in busy public lobbies. Whilst it could be bugs due to rushing updates out, lack of juice available to the developers could be a reason.
PC gamers have also been waiting over a year now for the next gen content such as HSW, ray tracing, and GTA+ to be brought over to their platform. We’ve reported on some rumblings happening as Rockstar have begun preparing that content for PC but it has been rather quiet lately. It would make some sense to see the PC version gain the features from the next gen version around the same time last gen has support ended.
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