Why Was GTA IV Delayed?
By William on Saturday, August 4th, 2007 at 10:15 AM PST In Rockstar
At this point, the reason for delay is mostly speculation. Some journalists have speculated that GTA IV was delayed to force Microsoft to give in when it comes to some of Rockstar’s demands. I really don’t know myself, so I’m not going to put out a definitive opinion on the situation. I can say that I am highly disappointed that the October release is not going to happen. As far as I knew, everything was on track prior to their delay announcement. Xbox Family has some interesting point to make concerning the delay. Those points are located after the article break.
As most have already heard, GTA IV has been delayed till Q2 2008. Speculation is running all over the internet as to the exact reason for this delay. As far as gamers knew, everything was fine at E3 and on track for a big October launch. As reported earlier this week, XF had learned about certain future titles requiring the 360 HDD for data caching, but hadn’t received any specifics on which games and when this would happen. Yesterday, when XF got word of GTA IV being delayed, we had to call our source. Apparently Rockstar wants GTA IV to give a seamless experience with load times limited as much as possible and void of loading whenever possible. This requires a HDD according to our source.
MS, while allowing certain titles (MMOs & soccer managers) to use the HDD already and reportedly allowing titles to do it in the future, did not want to segregate the 360 core users this early. Everything our source said made sense when we looked at what Shane Kim said in a recent interview with GamePro.com:
There was a rumor that Grand Theft Auto IV is not going to be compatible with the Core system because the game may require a hard drive. Is incompatibility with the Core model something Microsoft can’t allow, or are you flexible on issues like this?
SK: No, we want to support all of the Xbox 360s, otherwise it becomes very confusing. We really want to avoid that as much as possible.
So what would you say if Rockstar Games demanded you have a hard drive if you want to play GTAIV on the Xbox 360?
SK: We get to make the call on who gets published on our platform…[inaudible] we’d push back on any publisher saying things like that.
If everything we’re being told is true, it’s a good and bad thing. It means developers really do want to use the 360 to it’s full potential and make better games for you and I. It also means MS may very well limit what 360 owners get to play because they want to drag their feet on the HDD announcement till the Cores are completely off the shelves. Hopefully, someone will get this fixed soon so we can get back to just playing games.
Via Xbox Family Â
Use your head, if that was the reason they’d just release the 360 with some loading time and use the HDD on the PS3, they wouldn’t let MS push them into financial trouble by delaying the whole project.
I stole this of another site but it makes my point
“a) Rockstart states that the PS3 version is behind schedule.
b) PS3 takes longer to develope, Sony admits this!
c) All sceenshots and demos shown by Rockstar are have been from the 360 version of the game.
d) Rockstar would almosted definately by bound by contract not to release 1 version before the other.”
The most logical conclusion is that the PS3 version encountered some problems in developement and they were contractually bound not to release the 360 version first.
hhh
I think there are probably a lot of problems on this one. Most likely, the PS3 did slow things down and may be some of the problem. The disc space may have been a problem, as well, but if you’re going to design a one disc game for 2 consoles, you should really make it for the smaller one and move it to the larger one. Rockstar should have seen this comming well before the recent annoucement. If you’re not going to make a deadline, annouce it as soon as you can!
I think its a very bad move, also, to say that if a developer wants to make games that can’t be played on the core, Microsoft will push back. I know if I was making a game, I wouldn’t want to be making it for a company that says “we decide what gets put out for our console and if you don’t like what we want, you just won’t get your games out for the xbox 360.”
Mistakes all around, it seems.
AF F ES ES
For me , the reason behind this is both the ps3 and x360.
Ps3 maybe is having framerate issues
and X360 is sure having issues with the lack of hdd on core systems
anyway, the x360 problem is much much serious for MS than the framerate for sony, i mean the problem of the frame rate with time can be fixed, the other one is another bad decision by MS
I like Garth’s idea
Ohh so the apple of your game eye cant be responsible for the delay..
How about Rockstar being to blame for letting the business end get out of step with the development end…The 360 core issue is non..lots of used 20 gig drives around for the GTA fan…As far as the PS3 its a fact that its hard to write for…So hard in fact that we may never see anything live up to the hype.
As a life long gamer (im 41) I know good games are a numbers game and only a large volume of good games will net you a few excelent games…Microsoft is taking the volume approach this time while Sony is cutting one diamond at a time…If Sony puts out a few high end shitty games in a row after the fanboy honeymoon is over it could spell real trouble for its 3rd party partners.
Microsofts volume approach (XNA) dual code for PC and 360 at the same time will
ensure that new games will be on the shelf more often…and yes I may even trip over a excelent game or two while Im at it…Sony is trying for a masterpiece from the first brush stroke..So get used to delays excuses and 360 ports while Sony hides from its own shadow. Remember one or two “F” ups from Sony in the game dept and all they are left with is a expensive blu ray player that plays 360 ports.Can you imagine bad reviews from the first hyped ps3 title.
Maybe the game sucks…maybe Rockstar got cold content feet after England baned other Rockstar games…Maybe its not fun…maybe porting for both created a problem that not Sonys or Microsofts fault…maybe its a money thing like if we put off until this quarter we can write off all of this stuff and we get to keep a larger amount of profit (less corp tax).maybe Rockstar wanted to wait for a larger installed base on both PS3 and the 360 (after xmas). Who knows why its delayed except for the fact that its all about the MONEY.
Shut up you 360 fanboy, I guess you are just complaining here since your Xboc 360 broke down. If Sony’s 3rd party publishers are so scared then how do you explaing the hype around Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy 13. If anyone alienates their 3rd parties it would be Microsoft. So SHUT UP.
From what I know, not working with anything related to this kind of technology and only hearing what others say, the PS3 makes for a daunting platform to make games for.
Sony may not SAY things to scare people away (unless you count the times they’ve been caught in their lies recently, but that’s another topic, I would say), but if you develop a console too advanced, the time and effort that goes into making a game for it speaks as loudly as anything they could say.
That being said the one problem we DO know of is Rockstar let this slip and slip without saying it would be delayed until it was painfully obvious. A game slipping back MONTHS should have been known well before now, and it should have been annouced when they saw it was going to slip.
Something for fans of GTA to worry about now is how far it will slide. Big name games that start to get pushed back sometimes get pushed back a loooong way.
It’ll probably see us in 9 years, like TF2
wow, so once again sony is the cause for this delay? thats a bunch of crap. if i remember correctly it was the 360,s fault gta4 isnt going to be that large in the first place. so fuc dat p.o.s.
“… a difinitive opinion …”?
You need to take a few writing classes, William. You write like a 9th grader who thinks being verbose makes him look smart.
Jim 1, William 0, only trouble is now Jim looks like a smart arse. Score 1 point anybody who didn’t resort to fanboyism or personal attacks.
I love it when folks comment under my name.
Anyway, like I said on the other post on this topic, to anyone who saw the demo of GTA IV at E3, the delay is no surprise. Nothing was finished. The environments weren’t done, the music was all placeholder, everything was unfinished. Heck, the demo was done by driving a car within the traffic laws from point A to point B. As I heard someone say, it looked more like “Grandma Theft Auto” at that point.
It was such a poor showing (and that was the 360 version) that I couldn’t believe it would be on time. Nice to see I called one thing right.
I’m 42 years old so there’s a fair chance that i had the name before you, unless you’re older in which i’ll just be happy to know i’m not the oldest gamer on this blog
LOL – I have to hand it to you, you have had it longer than me, although not by as wide a margin as you would imagine.
I’m sure you’re not the oldest one around here, either.
Allright, that you guys are saying that the 360 got hdd problems, is just a small thing that does problems for the 360 version.
I dont really think thats why rockstar is delayig the Gta IV( It might be!), i think they are just fixing small bugs and shaping it up.
You guys sure think Im a 360 “fanboy” or whatever you are calling it.
But I have a ps3, and it RULES! Im just not taking sides, I think both consoles are good. you know, 360 got Fable and Halo. and ps3 got Metal gear solid.
Only that irritating me is that the ps only games has been on the xbox! now that pisses me of, you know, Gta was ps exclusive!:P