Red Dead Redemption might finally be coming to PC 14 years after its debut on Xbox 360 and PS3 but there’s a world where it may never have launched on PS3. According to some information from Rockstar Games developers who has shed light on the game’s development, the PS3 version was put together much later than you’d think.
With the news of Red Dead Redemption coming out on PC, technical analysis YouTube channel Digital Foundry discussed the subject; spotted by @videotechuk_. They also mentioned an Rockstar Games developer had told them something very interesting.
Following Digital Foundry’s Richard Leadbetter comparison of the two console versions of Red Dead back in the day, an anonymous developer from Rockstar reached out. He said it was like watching someone mark his homework. Plus, there was actually “no plans” for a PS3 port until later into the game’s development cycle. On top of this, the game’s map was originally designed just for the Xbox 360.
Digital Foundry took to Twitter to clarify the situation. Whilst the game’s map was indeed created before the PS3 had started development, it was not late into the game’s overall development.
Why the PS3 was difficult
For those unaware, the PS3 was notoriously difficult to develop for due to its cell-based processor. This led to various 3rd party games such as Red Dead Redemption running a lot poorly on the Sony machine compared to the Xbox 360.
Red Dead ran at a stable 30FPS on Microsoft’s console. Whereas it was well known how unstable the game was on PS3. It would routinely drop in to the low 20s which just feels bad to play. Similar things can be said about GTA VI.
Former technical director at Rockstar Games Obbe Vermeij also weighed in on the matter. He explained in a Tweet the Xbox 360 was so easy to develop for because of a software layer hiding the hardware. In contrast, the PS3 did not have that.
Games had to be written with the PS3’s native coding language and this was “hard and time consuming”. This is the reason why Xbox 360 was the lead platform. Obbe said it just “made more sense”.
Red Dead Redemption will release for PC on Tuesday 29th October after over 14 years since the old console launch. It will be very interesting to compare the original game with this suped version. If you’d like to know more about what new features will be in this PC port, check out our in-depth article here.
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