GTA 6 is not coming to the Nintendo Switch 2, and I am here to tell you that this is the correct decision. Nintendo of America president Devon Pritchard was asked about it and gave the kind of non-answer that would make a politician blush. She said it’s “a conversation for Take-Two and Rockstar,” which is corporate speak for “please stop asking me this.”
Nintendo Plays The Waiting Game
This is not a situation where Nintendo is holding out for a better deal. The company simply doesn’t need GTA 6. The Switch 2 is going to sell like crazy regardless of whether Trevor Philips can terrorize a fictional Florida. Nintendo has been doing this dance for decades, and they know exactly what they’re doing.
The Handheld History Is Weird
Let’s talk about the actual GTA games that have appeared on Nintendo hardware, because the list is genuinely bizarre. The original Grand Theft Auto got a Game Boy Color port in 1999, stripped down to the point where it barely resembled the PlayStation version. GTA 2 followed a year later on the same platform, and here’s a fun fact: that Game Boy Color version had a playable female protagonist, something the mainline series still hasn’t done again.
Then there’s Grand Theft Auto: Advance, which launched in 2004 for the Game Boy Advance. This one is a prequel to GTA 3, developed by Digital Eclipse rather than Rockstar itself, and it’s the kind of oddity that only exists because someone at Take-Two thought the money was worth it. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars arrived on the DS in 2009, and despite being genuinely excellent, it sold poorly compared to its console cousins.
Chinatown Wars Deserved Better
The DS game was a top-down return to the series’ roots, and it got rave reviews. G4.com called it “feature-laden” in a way that made “glaciers slow” seem like an understatement. But the audience wasn’t there. Nintendo DS owners were busy playing Nintendogs and Brain Age, not running drug cartels in Liberty City.
The Trilogy Port Fixed Nothing
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition came to Switch in 2021, collecting remastered versions of GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas. The Switch version had issues. Frame rate drops. Glitches. Texture pop-in that made the 2001 original look stable. Rockstar eventually patched things, but the damage was done. Switch owners got the worst version of a collection that was already controversial.
The Performance Question Nobody Wants To Answer
Nintendo’s entire brand identity revolves around being for “ages 5 to 95,” as Pritchard put it. GTA 6 is not that. It’s a mature-rated crime epic filled with the kind of content that would make a PTA meeting spontaneously combust. Nintendo has spent years cultivating a family-friendly image, and while they’ve loosened up considerably, there are still lines.
Here’s the part nobody at Nintendo or Rockstar wants to discuss publicly: can the Switch 2 even run GTA 6? The game is targeting PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and the Switch 2 is a portable device. Rockstar hasn’t confirmed a PC version yet, which suggests they’re still optimizing for current-gen consoles. The idea of squeezing that experience onto a handheld is ambitious at best.
Rockstar Has Better Options
If Rockstar wants to make money on Switch 2, they have a much easier path. Port GTA 5. The game runs on hardware from 2013. It would be a technical cakewalk. Red Dead Redemption 2 is also sitting right there, and a porting studio has already expressed interest in bringing both games to Nintendo’s platform. That’s the smart play. GTA 6 is a nightmare; GTA 5 is a printing press.
Switch owners can already play The Trilogy, which includes three of the best games ever made despite the mediocre remaster quality. That’s not nothing. Vice City alone justifies the purchase, even if the radio stations lost half their best songs to licensing hell. Sometimes you take what you can get.
The Bottom Line On GTA 6
Nintendo doesn’t need GTA 6 to sell Switch 2s. Rockstar doesn’t need Nintendo to sell GTA 6. This is a relationship of mutual disinterest dressed up as a possibility. Pritchard’s “nothing to announce” is the most honest thing anyone has said about this entire situation. GTA 6 will launch on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. It will sell millions. Nintendo will keep doing Nintendo things. Everyone wins except the person who genuinely believed they’d be playing GTA 6 on a bus.
Where to Check Out All Things Entertainment, Gaming, and Current Affairs
Social Media from David Gilbert
My Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn
Don't stop here
Every Score. Every Story. One Home.
Breaking sports, entertainment and news from across the Total Apex network, updated all day.
Get the Full Story →
