Rockstar conceived Red Dead Redemption as a Xbox exclusive with PS3 a surprise afterthought

Red Dead Redemption was one of the most surprising hits of the Xbox 360 and PS3 generation, a hit that has taken 14 years to finally make its way to PC. However, it turns out that Rockstar’s epic cowboy adventure was meant to be an Xbox 360 exclusive, at least for launch.

Red Dead Redemption PS3 port wasn’t planned

Revealed in the latest episode of the Digital Foundry Direct weekly podcast, host Richard Leadbetter revealed that a PlayStation 3 version of Red Dead Redemption was an afterthought. Leadbetter explained that the clear technical advantages of the Xbox version of the game over its PlayStation counterpart led Rockstar devs to reveal the latter’s quirky development.

The Digital Foundry creator explained that a Rockstar developer reached out after the publication of a head-to-head comparison a decade-and-a-half ago. At the time, the developer explained that it felt like someone was “marking his homework”.

However, the developer also revealed that the massive advantages of the Xbox 360 version of the game came down to the fact that the world was originally designed specifically for that console. In fact, a PS3 version of the game wasn’t even conceived at the time.

“We were talking a lot about the detail downgrades on PlayStation 3 and he was basically saying that, when the map was designed, there was no actual plans for a PS3 port,” Leadbetter explained. “It’s quite interesting how secretive Rockstar is, and there’s probably a huge amount of anecdotes that we’re never going to get any visibility on there.”

The Secrets of Rockstar

Over the decades, Rockstar has been widely known as one of the most secretive developers in the industry. While a huge leak did reveal countless details about GTA 6, the studio has been known to keep everything under wraps.

This has led to multiple scrapped projects that have still yet to resurface. For example, the PlayStation 3 exclusive Agent, a James Bond-esque spy-action game, has still yet to leak in any capacity, making the game one of the most illusive scrapped games in history.

With a PC port on the way, Red Dead Redemption is about to hit a brand-new audience that have called for the game’s latest release for more than a decade. It’s an exciting time, but have PC players simply waited far too long?