For a moment it looked like Grand Theft Auto 6 might be playable on PC on launch day—then Xbox's chief strategy officer crashed the party

We still don't have a PC launch date for Grand Theft Auto 6, or even official confirmation that it's ever going to come our way, even though we all know it is. But for one brief shining moment, fans on PC had hope that maybe they'd be able to backdoor their way into the cool kids club—that despite the absence of a PC version, they might be able to play it on November 19 anyway, without having to shell out for a new game console.

Alas, the word has come down from on high, and that word is: " No."

The ball got rolling when The Verge reported on October 6 that Xbox had secured the exclusive right to deliver GTA 6 via streaming platforms—that is, Xbox Cloud Gaming. And that would presumably make the game playable on PC, as Xbox Cloud Gaming is accessible through any PC rocking Windows 10 version 20H2 or later.

You'd almost certainly have to …