Ex-Rockstar producer John Ricchio says GTA 6's console-only start is about resources, not PC

John Ricchio, a Rockstar producer from 2003 to 2014, said in a YouTube interview that leaving a platform out at launch is a question of resources, not a dislike of PC, GamesRadar+ reported on July 13, 2026. He gave the view as a former employee and does not speak for Rockstar or Take-Two.

GamesRadar+ said Ricchio is credited on GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3, and that he spoke to the YouTuber Reece "Kiwi Talkz" Reilly. According to the report, he said starting development on PC and moving to consoles afterwards causes many problems. "You're much better off starting with the constraints," he said, because "shrinking is a lot harder than extending."

On the business side, he said it is "never any specific anti-any platform" decision. Eurogamer, which covered the interview on July 16, quoted him saying that if a team is working on a port, "you're not working on something else." He added that a port needs either a strong enough business reason or very little work, and that it is rarely that light.

Ricchio also recalled that Rockstar got an early PC build of Red Dead Redemption running to gauge the effort, years before that game's PC release. As GamesRadar+ and Eurogamer relayed it, his point was that the question was never whether Rockstar cared about PC, but whether the time was better spent on other work, such as GTA 5.

None of this is official. Eurogamer noted that Rockstar and Take-Two had stayed cagey about a PC version of GTA 6, which was due on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 19, 2026, with no PC release announced. Two months earlier, in May, Take-Two chief executive Strauss Zelnick had told Bloomberg that Rockstar always starts on console. The quotes here are as GamesRadar+ and Eurogamer gave them; the interview itself was not used as a source.

Since then, GamesBeat reported in October, citing anonymous sources, that a PC version is planned for early 2027. Rockstar has not announced a PC date.