Ex-Rockstar Dev Says a GTA 6 Switch 2 Port "Doesn't Make Sense" — but Your Phone Might Handle It
Former GTA 6 designer Jérémy Hartvick says a Switch 2 port "doesn't make sense" — his argument is audience, not hardware — while claiming GTA 6 could theoretically run on a phone. He left Rockstar in 2020, so this is informed opinion, not inside info.
GTA 6 launches on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 19, and the question of where it goes next refuses to die. PC is all but assumed. The Nintendo Switch 2 is the other question mark — and this week, a former Rockstar designer weighed in with an answer fans won't necessarily like.
Jérémy Hartvick, an open-world designer who worked on GTA 6 at Rockstar from 2017 through 2020, told YouTube channel Kiwi Talkz in a members-only interview that a Switch 2 port "doesn't make sense." But his reasoning isn't what most people would guess: he doesn't think it's mainly a hardware problem. It's an audience one.
"I don't believe it even makes sense, because I'm not sure the audience for GTA 6 is so much the audience for the Switch," Hartvick said. "If you're a GTA fan, you would probably buy a console on which GTA will come out."
The point sharpened in his follow-up: "Does it make sense for you to go out of your way to probably deliver a subpar experience, because it does not run exactly the same, when you know anyone will buy a PS5 to get your game? No."
In other words: Rockstar's brand is strong enough that GTA fans will buy the hardware, so why spend a fortune engineering a compromised version for a different audience?
Hartvick didn't slam the door completely. He said the idea isn't "totally ludicrous," and pointed to streaming as a possible route — running the game on servers and streaming it to the device, which would sidestep the Switch 2's hardware limits. And then he went further, in the direction nobody expected: smartphones.
"If they put their mind to it, you could be playing GTA 6 on your phone because that technology exists and it has been proven," he said, arguing that flagship phone chips have become powerful enough to theoretically run a game of GTA 6's scale — if Rockstar thoroughly optimized the engine for mobile architecture. The catch: reworking the physics, memory, and thermal management would carry "colossal production costs," making a dedicated mobile version hard to justify.
A few caveats are in order. Hartvick left Rockstar in 2020 — six years before GTA 6 launches. He has strong general knowledge of how the game was built, but he hasn't touched the current build, and Rockstar has changed plans many times since. His take is informed opinion, not inside information about Rockstar's actual roadmap.
And the counter-arguments are real. Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition reportedly sold well on the original Switch, suggesting Nintendo owners do buy GTA. Rockstar even brought Red Dead Redemption to the Switch 2 last December. The hardware concern cuts the other way too: it's the Switch 2's CPU — which would have to handle GTA 6's dense world simulation — that skeptics worry about most, more than its graphics chip.
For now, the official picture is unchanged: Rockstar has confirmed GTA 6 only for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with no announced PC or Nintendo versions. The Switch 2 debate will keep simmering — but if this former developer is right, Rockstar sees no business case for building it.
Sources: Kiwi Talkz (YouTube), Dexerto, GamingBolt, WCCFTech, Notebookcheck, Tech4Gamers