No, I’m not ready to let go of Grand Theft Auto going-ons yet.
MTV Multiplayer compiled a list of eight glaring inaccuracies between GTA IV’s Liberty City and the real world New York City. As someone who is close but doesn’t frequent NYC, I really wouldn’t have had these things occur to me in the course of playing the game.
We are not a car town: No sensible New Yorker uses a car as their primary means of transportation in the city, unless — maybe — they commute from the suburbs. Car ownership doesn’t make much sense. There are never any parking spots. Parking garages are prohibitively expensive. And, most importantly, the subway is a faster, cheaper and more efficient means of transportation. We don’t drive here. Niko, to be a real New Yorker, should rely on the subway. But what would he be left to grandly thieve?
We have lots of two-story tour buses:GTA IV includes sports cars, sedans, taxis, limos, garbage trucks, police cruisers, buses, motorcycles and more. But where are the red double-decker tour buses? This a drastic oversight. Every major thoroughfare in Manhattan has a roofless double-decker bus from Big Apple Tours or some other company. These buses are used to show visitors the sights. A guide stands on the top level with a mic in hand, pointing stuff out. Hey, Rockstar, if there was one signature New York City vehicle I wanted to commandeer right off a short pier in Liberty City, this was it. You let me down.
We eat bagels: Have I missed something or is it not possible to eat a bagel in Grand Theft Auto IV’s Liberty City? Niko can eat burgers, hot dogs and go to diners. But bagels? The most famous New York City food? Never fear, visitors to our town, we have bagels that can be eaten and enjoyed, whether Liberty City acknowledges it or not. Burgers? Waste of time. You can eat them in any town.
Okay, he’s nitpicking, but it’s still fun to find out where Liberty City falls short of being a true virtual representation of NYC.
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Both Microsoft and Game|Life have each compiled interesting lists focused on numbers surrounding the release of Grand Theft Auto IV. So if either numbers or GTA isn’t your thing, you should probably just move on.
According to Microsoft’s US team:
Actual MS sales data from last week shows Xbox 360 console sales at retail went up 54% week-over-week as a result of GTA’s success
According to retailers more than 60% of all GTA games sold in the first week were the Xbox 360 version
Retailers are telling us that the game is attaching strongly to new console sales, with roughly 40% of new consoles selling with a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV
As for Xbox Live:
In the first week, more than 2.3 million people played Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox Live
GTA IV is now the number one played game on Xbox Live
Over the weekend, we saw the Xbox Live service reach 1 million concurrent users
Gamers have unlocked more than 12 million achievements worth over 100 million gamerscore points in GTA
Grand Theft Auto IV set a new record for time played, with the average gamer spending more than four hours playing the game on Live in the first week alone
And some of the random facts Game|Life has compiled:
Damages sought by Take-Two after GTA IV ads were pulled from Chicago buses: $300,000
Steps included in official fix for PlayStation 3 issues: 12
Current Metacritic rating: 99
Restraining orders filed against the game: 1
The numbers don’t really lie, so it’s fun to take a look at them and try to crunch some of these numbers. And to think, the game’s only been out for a little over a week.
I didn’t read into Realtime Worlds’ decision to buy back the rights to All Points Bulletin; it simply sounded like they wanted to have full control over the game, which I imagine is something many developers would like. But a tasty rumor has surfaced that seems too good to be true — Eurogamer has been told by what they refer to as a “credible industry source” that the reason Realtime Worlds bought back the rights to APB was so they could try to sell it to Rockstar as GTA Online.
Realtime Worlds, the developer of Crackdown, has pretty strong ties to Rockstar. It was founded by David Jones, who was formerly the founder of DMA Design, which you might recognize as the former name of the developer now known as Rockstar North, which of course developed Grand Theft Auto. Funny the way things work out, isn’t it?
When contacted, Realtime Worlds claimed they had never heard of this rumor and claimed that they reacquired the rights to APB only to “give themselves some options.” The spokesperson explained, “One of which is to launch it and support it themselves, and the other one is to look for another partner; someone else who may well be interested and have the infrastructure [to support it].”
Rockstar has yet to issue any comment on the rumor, but it’s unlikely they’ll give anything more than a classy “no comment.” We do know Rockstar is interested in a GTA MMO, so the pieces certainly seem to fit together. APB looks pretty awesome, so if that turned into GTA Online, you wouldn’t hear a complaint out of me.
Rockstar has the new Grand Theft Auto IV patch 1.0.1 up. There’s no official patch notes to go by at this time. However, word out is that it will most effect multiplayer. Some gamers are happy to now be able to get online with their PS3. However, there still some complaints with type 2 freeze. It seems there are a lot of mixed results being reported, but really if you want to play online with your PS3, you have no choice but to patch.
David Reeves, the big bossman over at SCEE, recently told VideoGamer.com that owners of the PS3 version of GTA IV “probably will see” DLC in the future. If this is to be taken seriously, it would take the “exclusive” wind out of the Xbox 360’s sales and leave them just floating aimlessly upon the water.
This comes on the heels of Microsoft sending out press releases and sound bites regarding their exclusive deal to bring hours of additional gameplay to the 360 version of GTA IV - something that the PS3 was lacking. However, when Videogaming.com caught up with Reeves after his SCEE PlayStation Day presentation in London yesterday evening, they asked him if the Xbox 360 exclusive content was “damaging to the PS3″ and he had this to say:
“Well I think you probably will see it, it’s just that a deal obviously was struck between Microsoft and Take-Two to do that, and if that’s what they want to do, I think that’s the last shot they have.”
Videogamer.com went on to ask Reeves if he had anything to say to PS3 owners who were curious about being left-out of the DLC, he replied:
“I would say to them then, you know, email Rockstar (laughs), and ask them what’s coming. I think they already are, probably!I’m honestly not going to make any comment on that because it’s too big a thing to… we can make an announcement when we make an announcement.”
Baited words from Sony, and no comment from Rockstar. Nothing unusual there.
If you would like, you can read the rest of Videogamer.com’s interview with David Reeves by clicking through the link below.
Take-Two said today that Grand Theft Auto IV has surpassed all-time entertainment records for day one and week one sales by dollar value. Released just a week and one day ago,GTA IV has sold approximately 6 million units globally with an estimated retail value of more than $500 million in the first week. The game sold approximately 3.6 million units on its opening day with a retail value of approximately $310 million globally.Take-Two Chairman Strauss Zelnick sounds practically beaming when he states the following:
“We knew Grand Theft Auto IV would break new ground in terms of the player’s experience, with its compelling story line, extraordinary gameplay and action that ranges over a broad urban canvas. Now, it has broken sales and rating records as well. Grand Theft Auto IV’s first week performance represents the largest launch in the history of interactive entertainment, and we believe these retail sales levels surpass any movie or music launch to date. We congratulate the entire Rockstar team on creating a must-have experience that takes the legendary Grand Theft Auto franchise to a new level.”
Ben Feder, Take-Two’s Executive Officer went on to say:
“Rockstar’s goal is to make each new title in the Grand Theft Auto franchise even better than those that preceded it, and Grand Theft Auto IV is a smashing success on that score. Grand Theft Auto IV makes full use of the power of next generation technology, and offers players an experience unique in the interactive entertainment medium. This game sets a new standard in the industry, with critics hailing it as both an artistic and technological masterpiece.”
We all knew it would sell well, so this news just basically stated the obvious, but $500 million dollars is pretty darn awesome nonetheless. Plus, thanks to this wonderful bit of cash, stock in Take-Two was up $0.29 (cents) to $26.35 as of Tuesday.
We know that Electronic Arts was likely trying to take advantage of the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV with the timing of its acquisition attempts. We know that Take-Two was holding off so that they could take advantage of the higher stock values that would undoubtedly come when GTA IV launched. Now that Take-Two’s stock has risen to $26.63, which is slightly higher than the $26 offer EA had made, Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick said in a statement that the increase “vindicates our strategy of waiting until the launch with regard to EA’s offer.”
On the other hand, EA’s Jeff Brown doesn’t believe the change is unexpected and doesn’t really make a difference in his company’s offer to acquire Take-Two. He explained, “We’ve seen a share price above and below our offer and it doesn’t change anything. All of that was factored into our offer of $2 billion.”
A New York Times story infers the two different effects that the increase could have on negotiations between the two companies. Both of them seem quite realistic, so it’s difficult to make an accurate prediction about which way things will turn out.
On one hand, the relatively modest increase in Take-Two’s shares could prompt Electronic Arts and Take-Two to act quickly. Take-Two would theoretically do so because it’s not sure how much more it can expect shares to rise in the short term, and would do so because Electronic Arts can justify to its own shareholders a price increase, given that its current offer is below market.
On the other hand, the increase in Take-Two’s stock could serve to greatly prolong talk of an acquisition. Take-Two might feel the market is just beginning to validate its business and that the stock is only just starting to rise. But Electronic Arts could be intent on sticking with its price and feel that the longer it waits, the more the enthusiasm spawned by GTA IV’s introduction will wear off.
I remain hopeful that Take-Two withstands EA’s attempts, if only to save the NBA 2K series. EA murdered my favorite football franchise, and I’m not going to be pleased if they do the same to my favorite basketball franchise.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that achievements would be a big hit in the 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV; to me, it’s even one of the selling points right behind the exclusive DLC. But it’s interesting to now try and wrap your head around a figure that Major Nelson revealed in his most recent podcast — in just 24 hours, two million achievements worth 15 million Gamerpoints were unlocked in Grand Theft Auto IV alone.
Wow.
Major Nelson has promised more numbers like this in the future, which would be much more interesting to look at if he would also reveal the numbers behind some other big games like Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 so that we can compare. Even without it, it’s incredible to think that little pop-up came up two million times because of a single game in a single day. Incredible.via 1UP / image via Media Inside
While I plan on writing a long feature to disagree with Ron’s assessment that GTA IV isn’t the type of game that deserves a 10/10 score, I’ve yet to see anyone criticize the game’s soundtrack. And how could they? With 214 songs and some brilliant writing, it’s perhaps the most flawless aspect of the game. MTV’s Stephen Totilo seems to agree, and he recently spoke with Rockstar’s Ivan Pavlovich, who was in charge of the game’s soundtrack.
Pavlovich explained the difficulties with licensing hip-hop music – there are so many people involved, which make the songs much more difficult to get the rights to. Just check out the last few pages of the game’s manual for an idea of the hurdles involved with assembling the game’s soundtrack.
Design breakthroughs presented some new opportunities. “This is the first GTA where you can actually find out what song you’re listening to while you’re playing the game,” Pavlovich explained, noting that all a player needs to do is send a text message from GTA IV protagonist Niko Bellic’s in-game cell phone to get a text back with the info. A Rockstar-run Web site called the Rockstar Social Club can even track players’ favorite songs and direct them to a custom Amazon.com playlist where they can buy the music. (The developers had considered letting Niko go to an in-game music store but scrapped that.) Also new: The songs in the soundtrack don’t always play in a set order anymore. Many of the stations randomize the playing order. There are even multiple DJ intros to songs, just to mix things up.
One thing Pavlovich wasn’t aware of was the exact design decision that ruled out an in-game MP3 player. It’s really too bad, as it would’ve been great to listen to the radio even on foot, but it’s not like it’s all that difficult to jack a vehicle.
In another case of news that makes up fanboys’ dreams, we’ve got another case of missing Ps. This time it’s Grand Theft Auto IV on PlayStation 3, which has been discovered to run at only 630p – well short of the 720p you find in the 360 version.
You can find a fairly simple explanation of what that means on Kotaku, but anyone who’s played the game or checked out GameVideos’ side-by-side comparison of the game knows that the game looks great on both consoles. There’s a slight difference with the color palettes in the two versions, and the slightly warmer colors in the PS3 version might just be a result of Rockstar using the processing power on something other than displaying those extra 90 lines.
Ultimately, while fanboys might bicker and argue about which technical detail makes for the superior version, the rest of us can go on with enjoying a terrific game.
An annoyed female has thrown down on men and the lengths they go to get and play video games. Apparently the release of Grand Theft Auto IV has La’Juanda Knight up in arms with “grown ass men” indulging in this particular form of entertainment. I had to share this with all of you men out there, because I find it sad, offensive and hilarious all at the same time.
It seems that her main problem with video games is that men choose games over time spent doing something else. Her diatribe includes waiting in long lines, scheduling time to play, taking days off work to play and ignoring family members during game time. She’s infuriated with coming home to a gathering of guys watching someone play a game and is absolutely incensed with being asked to spend time with “her man ” (gotta love the possessive nature of that statement) watching him play. She also complains about men staying up late playing instead of doing something “constructive.” Like what? Drinking, scoring drugs, trolling for hookers or stepping out with a mistress? I can think of many past times that are worse than video games.
Oh, what’s that, Hollywood? You say the reason your ticket sales are down is because of those darn video games and not because most of your films are terrible? Well then how do you explain Iron Man earning over $100 million this past weekend? That’s $85 million more than this weekend’s other new film, My Best Friend’s Wedding With the Gender Roles ReversedMade of Honor, and $25 million more than most analysts were giving the film credit for. And one of this year’s biggest video game releases, GTA IV, hasn’t even been out a week, so there’s probably plenty of people still playing it.
Could it be all those gamers took my advice (yeah, right) or suffered some catastrophe like a broken controller or a Red Ring of Death that forced them out into sunlight? Or could it be people will actually traipse on down to the theater when there’s actually something good to watch? I don’t know, I’m not an analyst or anything; but I think it’s safe to say that video games aren’t stopping people from seeing movies that are actually worth seeing. Time to find a new excuse for your box office bombs, Hollywood. Or — crazy idea here — take all that creative energy in forming ridiculous excuses and put it into your movies. Just a thought.
GameCritics has a piece up on Grand Theft Auto IV commenting on the role of parenting in enforcing Mature rated Videogames. The article doesn’t spare any feelings or give a political correct treatment to the subject, which is why I feel it’s worth reading.
To all the ignorant adults, pandering politicians and neglectful parents who rail against the ‘evil’ games industry for turning America’s naïve offspring into Columbine clones and sexual deviants, the answer is simple—
Don’t let your kids play this game.
As a parent of a miniature clone army myself and an owner of GTA4, I agree whole heartedly. It’s every parent’s right to choose what their kids can and can’t consume; whether your talking food, drugs, books, tv, movies or videogames. I personally keep the game away from my kids and will not play it while they’re in the room. Is it convenient? No. But it’s conscientious parenting.
Adults have the right to adult entertainment. Those parents too lazy, busy or what ever their excuse is to pay enough attention to their kids to guide them as they mature have no one to blame, especially not the gaming industry, if their little darlings turn into criminals.
Unfortunately I fear this article will only be read by the educated, like minded individuals and miss the ignorant masses it’s aimed at.
We’ve all been watching the hoopla surrounding Grand Theft Auto IV this week. Heck, you can’t avoid watching it. It’s everywhere.
Like most of you, I made my way over to a local retailer Tuesday and picked up my copy. I brought it home, sat through the 4GB install on my PS3, and then leapt in. Judging from the perfect scores that have been thrown at this game like panties at a Wayne Newton concert, I expected to be completely blown away.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t. In fact, I was amazed how much like the previous editions of GTA it was. Now, I’m not one for messing up a good thing. The truth is that I like GTA IV, just as I’ve enjoyed previous iterations of the series. The problem is that it’s receiving perfect scores for a less than perfect game.
Grand Theft Auto IV is basically GTA III with a new character, a lot more voice acting, and an admittedly stunning graphics makeover. It really does little to nothing new, and leaves me wondering if perhaps the preview copies came with some sort of awesome swag we should know about.
This is why I distrust rating systems for games. Games like GTA IV (and Halo 3, etc…) are hyped into the stratosphere, given perfect scores, and then at release are found to be good, but not the shining gem of perfection we were all led to expect. Why can’t people just be content to say something like, “Wow, this game is pretty good, and it’s fun, but it’s really just the same old GTA again. I’d give it a nine.”
No, they have to spout off about how glorious it is, and wax eloquent about its majesty, only to leave us who didn’t play it prior to release feeling somehow slighted by the actual game we receive. Therein lies the tragedy: A good game leaves the gamer feeling somehow cheated because he isn’t experiencing the rapture the previewer obviously did.
Let me reassure you that GTA IV is a good game, even an excellent one. It’s just not perfect, and therefore, not a ten.
Well, July is approaching fast, and E3 with it. We received the list of E3 exhibitors, and thought we’d share them with you. As usual, you can expect us to have a team from Gaming Today on site to bring you coverage right from the Convention Center.
This year’s list includes (among others) Atari, Eidos, EA, Konami, LucasArts, Square Enix, and of course the big three of the console world: Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Contrary to popular rumor, Bethesda will make an appearance with Fallout 3, as confirmed by their blog post. Apparently they were left off the initial listing for an unknown reason.
You can see a full list of the companies currently expected to attend after the break.
I think you can really tell that GTA IV’s launch has impacted a lot of people, not by the number of copies sold or the hordes waiting to buy the game on Monday night, but by the fact that Jon Stewart is cracking jokes about it on The Daily Show. Comedy Central’s news program had Stewart commenting on the “riots” surrounding the game’s launch, along with a correspondent reporting from Liberty City. All I want to know though is when that crazy wedding game is coming out; that thing looks way more disturbing than anything in GTA IV. Check after the break for another video with some more from the in-game correspondent near the end.
Sure, a lot of us have been happily traipsing through the playground that is GTA IV’s Liberty City since early Tuesday morning. But there’s still a large number of gamers out there still holding out for the PC version of the game. I can’t blame them really, when all the previous GTA games really had smoother graphics and more precise controls on the PC version. Sadly, they may have to wait for quite awhile, as Rockstar has only a firm “No comment” regarding a possible PC release. I’d still bet they’ll pull out a PC version around Christmastime, but for now there’s no confirmation one way or the other. In the mean time, PC gamers, this next pedestrian I run over is dedicated to you.
I guess this was to be expected, but it’s still nonetheless very impressive. GTA IV is just one day out of the gate and already it’s smashing records. Early sales figures are showing that 609,000 copies of the game were sold on day one, edging out the previous record-holder, GTA: San Andreas. But the one piece of data that’s sure to have the fanboys arguing for awhile is that the Xbox 360 version accounted for 55% of sales, narrowly edging out the PS3 version. That’s hardly a win though, considering the millions that Microsoft pumped into promoting the 360 version, compared to Sony’s much more humbler promotions. GTA IV’s sales however did substantially surpass each console’s previous “day one bestsellers”: Halo 3 for Xbox 360, and Gran Turismo: Prologue for PS3. Either way though, it’s looking to be a very good week for both Sony and Microsoft. And yes, I’m sure every single person who bought the game is a minor with psychotic tendencies.
These always seem to kick up plenty of dust. But for all the fanboy arguments they cause, they’re interesting to watch so you can get an idea of what the same game looks like on the two different systems.
While there’s clearly a difference between the 360 and PS3 versions of Grand Theft Auto IV, I can’t really say that there’s a better version (in terms of visuals) between the two. It all comes down to a matter of color palettes and what your personal preference is.
The important thing, though, is that you’re getting a really sweet game that’s up to the visual par no matter what system you get it on.
Apparently some internet forums are abuzz with the news that GTA IV has been freezing up for some people. The game seems to lock up on the initial intro scene, forcing many people to unplug their console just to shut it off (personally, I booted up the game last night and didn’t have any problems at all). At first it was believed this was isolated to only specific models of the PS3, but a Rockstar rep let slip that it seems to be showing up on all types of systems. Unfortunately, at this time, Rockstar is completely stumped. Their techs are currently working hard on finding the cause of the lock-ups to come up a solution. I blame Arnold Schwarzenegger’s portrayal of Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin, but then again, I blame nearly everything on that “movie.”
Rockstar has the new Grand Theft Auto IV patch 1.0.1 up. There’s no official patch notes to go by at this time. However, word out is that it will most effect multiplayer. Some gamers are happy to now be able to get online with their PS3. However, there still some complaints with type 2 freeze. It seems there are a lot of mixed results being reported, but really if you want to play online with your PS3, you have no choice but to patch.
David Reeves, the big bossman over at SCEE, recently told VideoGamer.com that owners of the PS3 version of GTA IV “probably will see” DLC in the future. If this is to be taken seriously, it would take the “exclusive” wind out of the Xbox 360’s sales and leave them just floating aimlessly upon the water.
GameCritics has a piece up on Grand Theft Auto IV commenting on the role of parenting in enforcing Mature rated Videogames. The article doesn’t spare any feelings or give a political correct treatment to the subject, which is why I feel it’s worth reading.
We’ve all been watching the hoopla surrounding Grand Theft Auto IV this week. Heck, you can’t avoid watching it. It’s everywhere. 
Well, July is approaching fast, and E3 with it. We received the list of E3 exhibitors, and thought we’d share them with you. As usual, you can expect us to have a team from Gaming Today on site to bring you coverage right from the Convention Center. 
