Grand Theft Auto 5 Next-Gen Pricing Revealed
While most game studios release free next-gen upgrades for past releases, Rockstar has seen fit to charge for the Grand Theft Auto 5 next-gen updates.
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The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X remasters of 2013’s Grand Theft Auto 5 and its online component, Grand Theft Auto Online, will become digitally available on storefronts on March 15. However, the remastered versions won’t be a free upgrade for the owners of the original, and in light of the upcoming release, Rockstar Games has announced that both games will be cheaper at launch — at least in the first couple of months. While most studios are offering next-gen upgrades for free, Rockstar decided to slap a price tag on a game that was released way back in 2013.
According to Polygon, both Grand Theft Auto 5 and Grand Theft Auto Online will be cheaper when they launch next week, with one notable exception — the standalone PS5 version of the GTA Online will be free on the platform for the first three months. Other versions of the remaster are currently heavily discounted on Sony and Xbox’s respective digital storefronts and are currently available for pre-loading — allowing the players to jump into the gameplay as soon as the game launches. So, how much should the gamers expect to pay for the remastered versions of their favorite titles?
According to pricing on the Xbox Game Store, the Xbox Series X version of Grand Theft Auto 5, which includes its Online component, is currently on sale 50% off, dropping the price from $40 to $20, which is great. Those interested in purchasing a standalone version of Grand Theft Auto Online can also acquire the game for 50%, which drops the price from $20 to $10. Please note that all prices listed here are close approximations, and discounts on all the aforementioned versions last until June 14.
On PlayStation Store, Grand Theft Auto 5 is currently listed for pre-order at a mere $10, which is 75% off its standard price, and standalone Grand Theft Auto Online is available for free. It’s also worth noting that both discounts last until June 14. PlayStation even went a step further in trying to win Xbox gamers over by allowing them to transfer their in-game progress from their Xbox One consoles to the new PS5 version of the game. But that’s not the end of it.
Players can also migrate their Grand Theft Auto Online characters from both PS4 and Xbox One platforms to PlayStation 5 and get a hot set of wheels as a reward for doing so. Of course, some limitations to cross-platform mitigations exist, but those are mostly oriented towards the purchased in-game currency. We want to point out that this kind of support was never extended to the PS3 gamers, who lost their GTA Online progress forever when Sony pulled the plug on the PS3 version of Grand Theft Auto Online.
The upcoming Grand Theft Auto 5 remaster offers a variety of visual and gameplay upgrades compared to the last-gen consoles, including faster load times, improved graphics, increased population, traffic variety, and everything else facilitated by the current-gen powerhouse gaming hardware. Hopefully, it will turn out better than the previously released GTA The Trilogy, which launched with many problems currently addressed by Rockstar Studios. Of course, if the remasters turn out to be a fluke, Rockstar Games might once again apologize and give out previous iterations of the game for free. However, at least they offered a significant discount this time, which may or may not indicate the quality of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 5 remasters. We’ll find out once the game releases on March 15.
