A former producer at Rockstar Games has offered insight into the studio's long-standing practice of prioritizing console development over PC, explaining that starting with hardware that has more constraints is a more manageable development strategy. This approach, while leading to delayed PC ports for major titles like Grand Theft Auto 6, is seen as a way to avoid the complexities of scaling down a feature-rich PC version for consoles.
John Ricchio, who worked at Rockstar for approximately a decade before departing in 2014, discussed the development philosophies behind titles such as Grand Theft Auto 5 and the original Red Dead Redemption. He noted that while some developers opt to build for PC first, this method is "less fashionable now" due to the significant challenges it can introduce late in the development cycle. Ricchio stated that it is "always better to start with the constraints and then extend because shrinking is a lot harder than extending."
During his tenure, Ricchio recalled that a PC build for the original Red Dead Redemption was indeed functional early in its development. However, the decision to delay its PC release was a business consideration, weighing the resources required for a PC port against the development of Grand Theft Auto 5. "There has to be enough of a business reason to do some of those ports," Ricchio explained, "Or the lift has to be so light that it's like, 'Oh, it'll be super easy to do'. It's rarely super light."
While acknowledging that the technological gap between consoles and PCs has narrowed, making porting theoretically less arduous, the fundamental challenge of resource allocation remains. Ricchio's perspective suggests that the strategic advantage of developing within stricter limitations allows for a more predictable path to expanding features for more powerful hardware, ultimately simplifying the overall development process.