Portable Planet

Publisher Take-Two Interactive delivered a devastating blow to both PS3 and Xbox 360 gamers the latter part of yesterday– GTA IV is being pushed back until the second fiscal quarter of next year.  That means that gamers won’t be able to return to Liberty City until  somewhere between February and April of 2008.

“We determined today that a delay in the launch was essential to ensure the quality of ‘Grand Theft Auto IV,’ ” said CEO Strauss Zelnick in a conference call late Monday.

“The reason it is being delayed is almost strictly technological problems — not problems, but challenges,” he explained. “The technology that we’re developing for ‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ is pretty complex. It’s a big game. There are technical challenges across the board on both PS3 and 360. Our intention is to create a game that is the same experience on both. I know that there have been rumors in the market about frame-rate and some other issues. We don’t think it’s helpful or beneficial to go into what the technological issues are. We are pushing the envelope on both platforms.”

This is the first major delay to ever hit the GTA series. 

Source: MTV