Sony Signed an Exclusivity Deal for GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas Because It Was 'Worried' About Xbox, Former Exec Reveals

Sony’s original PlayStation exclusivity deal for Grand Theft Auto 3 and the following two games in the series was in part a reaction to concern about Microsoft’s launch of the Xbox, a former executive has revealed.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, former PlayStation Europe boss Chris Deering (who was recently criticized for saying laid off developers should “drive an Uber” or “go to the beach for a year”) admitted Sony was concerned about the November 2001 launch of the original Xbox, and sought exclusivity deals with third-party publishers to bolster the appeal of the PlayStation 2.

"We were worried when we saw Xbox coming," Deering said. "We knew exclusivity was the name of the game in a lot of fields, like Sky TV with sports. Just as Christmas was approaching when Xbox would launch, a few of us went out to our favourite third-party publishers and developers, and we asked them, 'How would you like a special deal if you keep your next-generation game on PlayStation exclusive for a two-year period?' And one of the deals we made was with Take-Two for the next three Grand Theft Auto games. At the time, it wasn't clear that Grand Theft Auto 3 was going to be as huge as it was, because it used to be a top-down game.

"It was very lucky for us. And actually lucky for them, because they got a discount on the royalty they paid. Those deals aren't uncommon in industries with platforms. Including today with things like social media."

As a result of this deal, Grand Theft Auto 3 released in October 2001 as a PS2 exclusive, a month before the original Xbox came out. The game released in May 2002 on PC, and then, two years after the PlayStation launch and after this exclusivity deal ended, in November 2003 for the Xbox.

As Deering mentioned, Sony’s Grand Theft Auto exclusivity deal was for three games, so included Vice City, which came out in October 2002 for the PS2 first, and San Andreas, which released in October 2004 for the PS2 first. Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City hit Xbox together as a pack late 2003, with San Andreas launching in June 2005.

The deal worked out perfectly for both Sony and Rockstar parent company Take-Two, as Deering suggests. Indeed, San Andreas ended up the best-selling PS2 game of all time, Vice City the third best, and Grand Theft Auto 3 the fifth best. Only Gran Turismo came close the the sales the Grand Theft Auto games posted on PS2.

The exclusivity deal also helped cement Grand Theft Auto as a PlayStation-first series, and while Grand Theft Auto 4 and Grand Theft Auto 5 launched on PlayStation and Xbox at the same time, Rockstar’s open-world crime epic is still strongly associated with Sony’s consoles, even now. In fact, a number of Grand Theft Auto games made IGN’s Top 100 Best PlayStation Games of All Time list.

But what about the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6? It’s due out on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S at the same time in the fall of 2025, but marketing deals with either Sony or Microsoft have yet to be announced, if they exist at all.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].