Grand Theft Auto 6 will target 30 frames per second on every current console, Rockstar confirmed on 10 November, nine days before launch. There is no performance mode on PS5, PS5 Pro, Xbox Series X or Series S, and the only visual upgrade reserved for one machine is a set of ray-traced shadows on PS5 Pro.
That is the second big detail from the day. Microsoft says the game will also be playable on Xbox One, which cannot run it natively, through Xbox Cloud Gaming from 1am Eastern on 19 November. Streamed copies use the graphics settings of the Series S, the weakest of the current Xbox consoles, so the cloud route is a way in rather than the best version.
Rockstar’s statement says the game was built from the ground up for current consoles and pushes both platforms to their limits while keeping its dense environments. On PS5 Pro it relies on PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution to sharpen the image. Rockstar also repeats that the game plays best on PS5, pointing to the DualSense controller’s speakers, haptics and adaptive triggers, Tempest 3D Audio and faster loading from the console’s SSD, which Sony’s PlayStation Blog also describes.
On the Xbox side, Xbox Wire says Series X and Series S owners can already pre-install the game, while Xbox One owners will stream it. A separate option opens on 11 November: in supported markets, cloud time can be bought without Game Pass, but the game is still a separate purchase. Microsoft adds that Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 are due on cloud in the coming months.
There is no PC streaming route. An Xbox cloud stream is limited to consoles at launch, which settles a rumour from early October that Microsoft had bought exclusive streaming rights for any device. Xbox denied that at the time. Streaming from your own console to another screen at home, known as Remote Play, works on both PlayStation and Xbox.
The performance news arrived as pre-loading opened. Sony calls it the biggest pre-order the PlayStation Store has seen, and is unlocking the game country by country at local midnight on 19 November, New Zealand first. Microsoft makes the same claim for its own store. Details of the preload size and steps are in our earlier post.
Rockstar has not said whether a higher frame-rate mode will come in a later patch. The game launches on 19 November.
