No Grand Theft Auto IV Until 2008
Weeks ago the company insisted that everything was fine. Now, not so much.
The biggest game of 2007 is instead poised to be the biggest game of 2008 with the news that publisher Rockstar is being forced to push back the release its eagerly awaited new Grand Theft Auto game.
In a statement on Thursday Rockstar parent company Take-Two said that Grand Theft Auto IV's release on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 was being delayed because of "additional development time required to complete the title".
Some industry watchers have already speculated that the blame for the delay sits at the feet of the PS3 version, which Rockstar on several occasions conceded to Kikizo has been running behind in development.
"Certain elements of development proved to be more time-intensive than expected, especially given the commitment for a simultaneous release on two very different platforms," Strauss Zelnick, chairman of Take-Two, said in a statement.
As recently as July, when Kikizo visited with Rockstar to get a second look at the game in action, Rockstar was still confident that it would hit the previously announced 19 October release date.
Instead, Take-Two is now planning to get the game into the hands of Xbox 360 and PS3 owners in the second quarter of its 2008 financial year, which puts the release sometime between February and April.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo
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