Was GTA V Enhanced a missed opportunity from Rockstar for a Nintendo Switch version?

GTA V is nothing short of a household name at this point. Rockstar's 2013 entry in their iconic action-adventure series is the second best-selling game of all time, selling over a whopping 160 million copies. It has appeared on nearly every major platform since its PS3/Xbox 360 debut.

Last month's arrival of GTA V Expanded & Enhanced on PS5 and XSX|S marks the third generational release of the open-world game. However, one popular platform has been oddly omitted so far: Nintendo Switch.

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GTA V is resurrected on new platforms

Nintendo's latest portable console continues to be one of the hottest devices. This is despite the arrival of new consoles. It sits at well over 100 million units sold. That's been enough to grab the publishers' attention, who have scrambled to debut their popular IPs on the platform.

These include Bethesda with The Elder Scrolls and CD Projekt with The Witcher. We've also seen the Switch bench plenty of ports above its weight, like DOOM Eternal and World War Z.

So Take-Two and Rockstar being hesitant to bring over their nearly-decade-old cash cow to a brand new userbase seems odd. They had a golden opportunity to do so with the PS5/XSX|S launch of GTA 5.

It is in no way implied that the Enhanced version will be ported over. It isn't feasible due to the Switch's lack of technical grunt and headroom for the new bells and whistles. However, a custom-tailored rendition of the PS4 version should be more than feasible.

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Reasons why it was a missed opportunity

For starters, the audience for that is there. Who would turn down portable GTA V? Especially when more niche games can and have done well on the Switch in terms of sales.

Since Rockstar was busy polishing the game for the current-gen, they could've allocated a third-party porting house to handle the Switch port. Teams such as Panic Button and Saber Interactive have proven themselves to be masters in squeezing the most out of the Switch's Tegra X1 chipset.

Given how popular GTA V continues to be all these years later, they could have turned the hype up further by announcing a Switch version. I would argue that a Switch port makes more sense than PS5/XSX|S.

Why? Since the new consoles are backwards compatible with PS4/XB1, most PS5/XSX|S owners already own and have played the game. At the end of the day, Rockstar is selling the game back to the same audience.

Additionally, the userbases for both current-gen home consoles are far smaller than Switch's. Hence, the argument that development costs may not be feasible to make a Switch version worthwhile can be put to rest. Especially considering there's not much reason for existing players to double-dip. Switch, meanwhile, has an untapped market waiting to be discovered.

Possible concerns could be file sizes - but digital-only games are a thing. Another issue could be the online component being too demanding. Acceptable, if not, because Enhanced does not include GTA Online; on these new machines, it is a separate purchase. They can do the same on Switch or just port over the story mode.

There logically seems to be no reason barring a Switch port besides the publisher's own decision. So it is indeed a shame that Rockstar and Take-Two did not see it worthwhile to bring it over to Nintendo's handheld. At this point, the only GTA games on the Switch are those in the recent Trilogy remaster: 3, Vice City and San Andreas. Would you have liked to play GTA V on Switch?