Vice City To Xbox, Not GTA?

Thanks to IGN Xbox for their report that Grand Theft Auto:Vice City may be coming to Xbox this Christmas, but without the famed 'GTA' name. According to the piece: "As many insiders know, the Grand Theft Auto series is supposed to be PlayStation 2 console exclusive, however sources reveal that Rockstar is circumventing the agreement by stripping the Xbox version of the title Grand Theft Auto, and simply repackaging the game as Vice City." If true, this would mean that Rockstar wouldn't need to wait until after the next GTA game was released to lose Sony exclusivity, and could put out suitably renamed/rebranded GTA titles on other consoles sooner, rather than later - a fascinatingly sneaky concept.

Comments

Just the sort of sneaky, lowdown, paralegal thing

[Red Pointy Tail]

... you would expect from the designers of GTA! Where do you think they get their inspiration from? Way to go!

I'd be damned surprised if this worked.

[andrew_dupont]

I'll be far less skeptical when they quote someone other than an unnamed source.

One thing I know about Sony--they're a big company, and thus have lots of lawyers. If Rockstar wants to wage a giant legal battle over the semantics of a contract, then I'd advise them to start of small and work up to multinational conglomerates.

Sony's grip on GTA series

[jvmatthe]

It occurred to me just the other day that EVERY GTA game is playable on the PS2. GTA was released for the PSX as was the add-on disc London 1969. Then GTA2 was also released on the PSX. (GTA2 also came out for the Dreamcast.)

Then along came GTA3 and GTA:VC, both for the PS2.

Except for GTA2 on the DC, no other console has had a GTA game. Not the N64 (duh). Not the Saturn. Looks like Sony's had a lock on this series for longer than I'd realized. Of course, there are the GameBoy Color versions, but those don't compete in the same market. And the mythical GTA3 for GBA still seems like vaporware.

The London 1969 add-on is cool, BTW. Plays better than the original GTA1, which is a bit choppy on the PSX. The prices on the PSX games are also way cheap nowadays. Is GTA2 worth playing?

Re:Sony's grip on GTA series

[Goldsmith]

That came out a little wrong...

I meant GTA 1 was a PC game as well (of course)

In any case, try GTA2

Re:Uh...morals

[eMartin]

If that's bothering you, maybe Vice City isn't your type of game anyway.

Cooling off period

[August_zero]

GTA is not PS2 exclusive exactly, there is just something like an 6 or 8 month waiting period before they are allowed to port it, at least that was my take on it. Vice City will be over a year old by the time it comes to x-box, most of it's revenue has already been made and if anything they will be selling it to many of the same people that already bought it since very few x-box owners don't have PS2s.

The name change trick is a clever idea, but it would never work if it went to court.

Re:this can't be legal

[AvitarX]

This is closer to Prince changing his name to "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince" (sorry, don't think I can type the squiggle.) That of course didn't work, and eventualy he became "The Artist".

Also, Without a massive restructuring I think it would be hard to clame that it was a different game. I find it hard to imagine that all these console exclusives were simply a name change away from being something else, but what do I know.

Bad Form

[limekiller4]

Yeah, they're Rockstar, but how stupid is it to give Sony of all people the big double deuce? Bad Fscking Move. Because trust me, Rockstar, you will see the same people coming down that ladder that you saw on the way up.

I will admit that I have not looked into this past the blurb (so apologies in advance if a closer look would have revealed all this to be bogus), but if it's true this strikes me as very, very poor form. You got there, in part, with Sonys help. Incredible games, but I really hope their lawyers cram it up your ass.

Re:Bad Form

[limekiller4]

It doesn't matter who has a better claim. A deal was made and now Rockstar is pulling some really, really cheezy stunt to back out of it. That will haunt them until they die. Everyone slumps at some point. And when they do, they will be harshly reminded of this event in the form of a producer that thinks to themselves "look what they did to Sony, I don't need that kind of hassle."

I heard they're also...

[yotto]

...selling a new game to Xbox as well, named III.

Re:Never bite the hand that feeds you...

[drewmca]

Sony can ban them from ever selling on their console. That's fine. They'll turn around and start making games exclusively for xbox.
People need to remember that Sony isn't in the lead because the PS2 is a better system than GC or xbox. They got in the lead because they had a system seller like GTAIII at a crucial time in the console race, when the other consoles were just getting started and the PS2 finally got past its dismal first-year showing of games. If Sony doesn't like what Rockstar is doing, then Sony can try to take them to court but that would kill them by denying them access to guaranteed revenue with the GTA series.
with the console race the way it is now, I'd say Rockstar is more important to Sony now than the other way around. Sony's a bigger company, sure. But losing Rockstar would hurt. Losing Rockstar to Microsoft would hurt a whole hell of a lot.

Rockstar Would Pay Hard

[Bloodmoon1]

Assuming this is true, I'm sure Sony would make Rockstar eat this one hard. I have 0 evidence to support this, but I think it's pretty safe to assume that, especially after the success of GTA 3, Sony must have thown enough very heavy bags of money at Rockstar to make them keep VC (And probably GTA3) a PS2 exclusive (as far as consoles go), if not forever, for at least a good few years. Rockstar doing this would probably get them the support of X-Box fans, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Sony blocked Rockstar titles in the future as a form of punishment. And there are a lot more people with PS2's then X-Boxs (Though this may have something to do with PS2 failure rates inflating sales numbers, but that's another post) so a Sony block would hurt Rockstar in the long run.

Besides, I'm sure a healthy number of people with X-Boxs probably have PCs, and those that would buy VC probably already bought it when it came to PC, so I really think any customer gain would be slim, mostly limted to X-Boxers without PCs capable of running VC. I'm not saying it wouldn't still sell well, but it probably wouldn't be worth: 1) Alienating Sony for the rest of time, 2) The loss of whatever "retention" bonus I'm sure Sony would violently take back out of Rockstar's ass, and 3) Any costs associated with said violent anal raping of Rockstar by Sony, i.e. Court Fees. So, again, assuming this is true, it would be a very bad case of near sightedness on the part of Rockstar.

And as for the validility of this story, why the hell would Rockstar risk fucking up like this a year or less before their Sony exclusive deal is supposidly going to expire? Odd both these come from the same source.

Re:Rockstar Would Pay Hard

[Babbster]

...I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Sony blocked Rockstar titles in the future as a form of punishment.

Only if Sony is beyond stupid. That would be the equivalent of saying to Rockstar, "No thank you, we would rather NOT have those millions of dollars in royalties."

If Rockstar WERE to evade the exclusivity deal in this matter, Sony might sue them, they might simply demand a portion of the cash they paid for the exclusivity back (Rockstar, Take Two, et. al. can easily afford it at the moment), and they would certainly be wary of doing any more exclusive deals with the company. They would not, however, discourage Rockstar from making PS2 games. The fact that Rockstar sells millions of units means that Sony makes millions of dollars in licensing fees. And Sony ain't Nintendo with the the whole grudge thing - they're in too many markets to take that kind of narrow view.

Re:Rockstar Would Pay Hard

[kumnaa]

Indeed. The GTA series of games are a huge money making brand. If Sony were to piss Rockstar off they would simply move to the other consoles to make their millions while Sony would be losing a large chunk of royalties. Alot of people bought a PS2 for GTA3/Vice City.

The Obvious Solution...

[a_peckover]

...is to name the game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Simulator. That way, you aren't playing GTA: Vice City on your XBox, your are merely simulating playing it. They could have the game start with the Playstation 2 logo, or if they wanted to say it was a simulation of the PC version it could just have a really low framerate, lowres textures and crash all the time.

License Agreements

[Quill_28]

Things like this are why license agreements are twenty pages long and take a team of lawyers to decipher. Grrrrr