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GTA IV Delayed Into Next Year
1up has the news that Take Two is moving Grand Theft Auto IV's release out to Spring 2008. Sam Houser (the executive producer for Rockstar Games) says that the demands of creating games for the new consoles, along with the scope of the game, forced their hand to maintain the quality they wanted. "'With Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar is setting a new standard for next generation video games,' stated Strauss Zelnick, Chairman of Take-Two. '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. We all recognize that perfecting the game is vital and I can assure everyone it will be worth the wait.'"
How is this surprising when all they had to show at E3 was a dude driving down a street?
The PS3 is in desperate need of a blockbuster at the moment, Microsoft has Halo, Nintendo has Mario, and PS3 (while not a Sony creation) has GTA. Without Grand Theft Auto what killer blockbuster games do they have this X-mas? (I'm not talking "It's a good game with high review scores" I'm talking Buy the system, Pre-order the game, Million Seller right away kind of games)
Web Developers: Celebrate to our roots! Animated Gifs and Tiled Backgrounds, dont let our history die!
No, it takes "cojones" to stand up and say why they're really slipping the release. "For Quality" is the default cop-out.
So far what we've seen of GTAIV looks like crap.
The environments are nowhere near next gen levels.
The art and characters are dreadfully drab compared to previous games.
Early previews of the game say it is a mess huge framerate problems, horrendous pop-in for geometry, and so on.
I have a hard time believing that this will be anything but the least popular GTA in the series. You really have to wonder if something major has gone wrong at Rockstar with key people leaving or other internal staffing or management problems.
When Nintendo used a crap format (N64 carts) they lost developers. We're talking about Nintendo here, an established presence at the time -- the NES and SNES had dominated their competition. Microsoft has sold a total of around 30 million consoles -- 20M X-Box, 10M 360s. Rounded, because I'm lazy and that's close enough. the N64 sold around that number. In addition, Nintendo actually did well in Japan, something Microsoft does not.
If MS's decision was actually hampering developers, they'd leave.
So take your whining somewhere the fuck else because it doesn't fit in with REALITY. Last gen, Sony had launch exclusivity for GTA:VC and GTA:SA. They lost that this generation. If anything, signs point to Sony pissing off Rockstar, not Microsoft. You never even back up things like:
And Rockstar has been publicly complaining about being forced to try to fit a free roaming city sized world into a smaller amount of space than last gen.
Where? I have no seen such a complaint -- and you'd think someone who hates MS enough to troll EVERY SINGLE GAMES POST might have a goddamn link handy for this. And don't tell me "MS is paying developers" unless you have a link for it. I love how everything MS does is shady or being paid for, but Sony is just this great consumer friendly corporation. I don't know what fairy tale land you live in, but in the world I live in, both companies fucking suck when it comes to the way they treat customers.
(/rant off)