GTA IV still on track for October, both epic episodes in 2008
The suggestion by an analyst at Wedbush Morgan that Take Two's new management team might delay Grand Theft Auto IV, due to its close release to another big video game, as well as a strategy to impress investors by pushing it into a following fiscal year, created quite the buzz recently. However, when parent company of Rockstar Games, Take Two Interactive, posted their financial results for their second quarter of the 2007 fiscal year today, they made it perfectly clear that the game will retain its release date of October 2007. This was also mentioned during a conference call where the executives reaffirmed investors and fans of the series that they're going to meet their initial release date.
During the Q&A session of this conference call, several questions were asked regarding GTA IV, including whether we'll see a PS2 release of the game in the future. T2 replied by saying that this is unlikely, due to the fact that they're developing a next generation game and that once you see it you'll understand why it won't make its way to older platforms. So there you have it, officially! Something else that was revealed during the session, as well as partially in the press release, was that the two promised episodic episodes - both offering hours of new game play - will both be releasing during 2008. Interestingly, in the press release, this is listed specifically for the Xbox 360 version of the game. No word on extra downloads for the PS3 version as of yet, but rest assured it has yet to be ruled out.
During a question on this, it was revealed that while both versions of the game will be very close, they won't be identical experiences. We're not going to jump to any conclusions just yet, Dan Houser, Vice President at Rockstar Games, did say in a magazine preview that it is their goal to have no differences, and that there are no platform preferences. Maybe it will just be differing on things such as frame rate, graphics and controlling; the PlayStation 3's SIXAXIS controller has a motion sensor, offering unique experiences, while the Xbox 360's controller offers better control on vehicle acceleration with its right trigger, for instance. We just can't say yet, but we'll keep you updated on this! More GTA IV news to follow soon, we hear...