A former Rockstar producer revealed the real reason behind GTA 6 skipping PC at launch, and it has nothing to do with the publisher not caring about PC gamers.
John Ricchio, ex-producer behind GTA V, Red Dead Redemption, and Max Payne 3, spoke with YouTuber Reece "Kiwi Talkz" Reilly, sharing his thoughts on the industry and the current state of the game development. And the reason why GTA 6 will be launched on consoles first, according to him, has nothing to do with Rockstar not caring about the PC gamers.
PC being second priority is not a big deal
"I think it's more just, you know. When you're prioritizing things, it was just a matter of, you know, do we have more resources going into the PC port versus doing GTA V, you know," said Ricchio.
And he added that it's always been a matter of resources, saying that Rockstar had always favored development on fixed hardware (consoles) over the PC because there is "much better" starting point when it comes to development.
"You're much better off starting with the constraints because shrinking is much harder than expanding," he said.
When asked about why Rockstar didn't launch Red Dead Redemption on the PC, considering that a working build was ready as early as 2009, with the game launching in 2010, Ricchio said that the reason was simple: money.
"Spending money on that means you're spending money on that. You're not spending money on something else," he responded. "It was never a technical discussion for us. It was always a matter of, you know, what do we want to spend the money on."
GTA V was available on PC in 2015, two years after its 2013 launch on consoles. Red Dead Redemption 2 followed the same pattern, launching on PC in 2020, a year after the 2018 launch on consoles. It's important to note that GTA 6 will follow in the same tradition, launching on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on November 19, without a PC release date.
PC gamers not getting the game earlier is not a big deal
Some internet users tried to write this off as Rockstar trying to get more money out of PC gamers by making them wait for GTA 6, but Ricchio had a simple response to that.
"I think it's always been a matter of, you know. Do we have enough of a business case to do some of those things?" he said, adding that there had to be some business case for supporting the PC, or the said port would have to be much easier to develop than it typically is. Rockstar hasn't officially announced a PC release date for GTA 6 yet, but given the pattern, it's likely that the game will arrive on PC in 2027 or 2028.