If they only released RDR on PS3, this explanation might make sense as the engine would be heavily optimised for PS3. But they also released on Xbox 360, which is the closest console platform to Windows in terms of architecture. It wouldn’t have been that expensive to port.
The one thing that could cause serious porting pain would be the need to support high/variable frame rates. That could require a whole bunch of code to be refactored.
If they only released RDR on PS3, this explanation might make sense as the engine would be heavily optimised for PS3. But they also released on Xbox 360, which is the closest console platform to Windows in terms of architecture. It wouldn’t have been that expensive to port.
I think there must be a degree of truth to the spaghetti code backstory, otherwise Rockstar would’ve just ported it already and raked in the cash
The one thing that could cause serious porting pain would be the need to support high/variable frame rates. That could require a whole bunch of code to be refactored.