A former Sony head has revealed that Grand Theft Auto was a PlayStation 2 exclusive because of the Xbox. The executive spoke during a recent interview, where he acknowledged that Sony had been concerned about the coming Microsoft console, and that led to three GTA games being PS2-exclusive.

Grand Theft Auto 3 was a massive success, but its overwhelming popularity came as a bit of a surprise to some members of the game development community. Though it was already an established series, GTA 3 dramatically shook up gameplay, switching from a top-down view to third-person, and away from a level-based score system. GTA 3 became one of the best-selling games on the PlayStation 2, and that's due in part to this exclusivity deal.

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In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, former PlayStation Europe president Chris Deering spoke about the PlayStation 2 and Sony's concerns over the then up-and-coming Xbox console. In advance of the Xbox's launch, Deering said the company approached a few of its "favorite" third-party publishers and developers with an offer for a two-year exclusivity period. Take-Two was one of these publishers, and it agreed to the deal, locking down its next three games with the PlayStation family of consoles. As a result, GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas all launched on the PlayStation 2 first, remaining solely accessible on PlayStation and PC for the exclusivity period.

GTA Deal Worked Out Great for PlayStation and Take-Two

As Deering states, the deal was a good one for Take-Two, as the publisher "got a discount on the royalty they paid." GTA likely helped to sell PlayStation 2 consoles, while those who had already bought PS2 consoles were enticed to try GTA as it began to explode in popularity. In the end, the aforementioned GTA trilogy became three of the top five of the PS2's best sellers over the course of its lifespan, with GTA 3 coming in fifth, GTA: Vice City in third, and GTA: San Andreas in first.

While the games would eventually be released for the Xbox family of consoles, Xbox gamers had to wait to get their hands on them. Interestingly, GTA 6 is currently slated to arrive for the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X/S at the same time, but no announcement has been made for a GTA 6 PC release. It will almost surely reach that platform eventually, but for the moment, gamers have to wait and see when that will happen. While the PlayStation and Xbox family of systems continue to compete with each other, there's practically no doubt that both consoles will see a massive influx of sales once the game finally launches on their platforms.