Tag Archives: grand theft auto

Piper Jaffray’s Anthony Gikas has bumped his Take-Two target up to $15, from $11, saying in a note that GTA V is “expected” in the company’s fiscal ’11.

“Our confidence in the company’s profitability profile is improving as product flow for FY 2010 is greatly improved and Grand Theft Auto V is expected in FY ‘11,” he said today.

“Assuming no change to product flow, we expect the company will have 10-plus games that will sell over one million units.”

Take-Two is currently in its ’09 Q4, which ends on October 31. FY ’10 ends October 31, 2010. Mr Gikas here is saying GTA V will release sometime in the 12 months ending October 31, 2011.

That’s a long time to wait, isn’t it?

Take-Two’s reached a $20 million settlement in the Hot Coffee case, the company said today.

$15,200,000 will be paid by the company’s insurancers, and $4,915,000 will be paid by Take-Two itself.

Win for the prudes. PR after the break.

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Rockstar’s just tweeted that new stuff’s on the way from the publisher today, as you can see here.

The firm’s rebooted its site in anticipation.

GTA V confirmed. Hold onto your hat, granddad.

Rockstar does not plan on turning the Grand Theft Auto series into a movie franchise any time soon.

As a matter of fact, vice president Dan Houser says the prospect of one considered, and then quickly tossed aside.

“We don’t believe that the Grand Theft Auto games, which are massive in scope and structurally complex, can be adequately compressed into a two-hour movie,” he told the LA Times. “It seems obvious to us that maintaining the long-term integrity of any entertainment property has been dependent on not making substandard spin-off products to people whose primary interest is making a quick buck.

“If we ever decide to do a film, it will be because we have resolved our creative doubts, and while retaining enough control to ensure that if the movie is terrible, at least we will know we ruined the property ourselves.

Via GTA.4net, Kotaku.

We were lucky enough to get nearly 20 minutes with Realtime Worlds boss and original GTA creator Dave Jones at Develop yesterday, the result of which you can see after the break.

We talked almost exclusively about APB, Jones telling us when the game will release, how much it’s cost to make and going into good detail on the mechanics of the MMO itself.

Jones also gave opinion on the state of the GTA franchise, calling Vice City the “pinnacle” of the IP.

There’s tons more stuff in there. Enjoy.

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Play Insights sent out a survey asking if a karma system should be implemented into the Grand Theft Auto series.

Over on the WiiSpace forums, member Da Ill One posted a screenshot of it, and this is what it read:

Do you think Grand Theft Auto would benefit from having a “karma” system or “good” vs. “evil” actions mechanism that allowed you to choose your overall path by doing good or bad actions, where those actions have an accumulative impact on how the game unfolds? When answering, please consider the idea of being “good” or “evil” and NOT the particular execution / how this feature would be implemented.

Granted this is a survey and does not denote whether Rockstar would include such a feature in the next GTA game, but the thought is still intriguing.

Hit the link for more.

TV Judge Greg Mathis and filmmaker Matty Rich are teaming up to create game for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 called Mathis “Detroit” Street Judge.

The game is expected to be reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto – but with prison rape.

Huh?

Mathis says his goal as a judge, and as a gamer, is to introduce consequences today’s youth and the best way to do that is through videogames.

“The main difference between our game and Grand Theft Auto is that players will have to deal with the justice system and consequences for their actions,” said Mathis.

“When you go to prison, you gain credibility when you come back on the streets. On the other hand, when you go to prison you can also be raped. So take your chances. We may see young people who make the wrong choice and go to prison and are assaulted repeatedly (in this game).”

The third-person open-world shooter takes place in the rough end of Detroit, where players assume the role of ex-convict La-Ron Washington. La-Ron has two strikes against him and if he messes up again, Judge Mathis will throw the book at him – if the Detroit underworld doesn’t get to him first.

“Video games allow you to obtain the fulfillment of [a violent] lifestyle without being in it,” he added.

Loads more through the link.

A British man found some “ecstasy tablets” in one of the used GTA games he purchased at a GameStation in Gloucestershire.

“When I opened the box up, the cling film wrap fell out. I could not believe it. I have two children and my son plays Xbox all the time. He could easily have opened the box and found them,” Richard Thornhill told the Telegraph.

“I dread to think what the consequences would have been if he had. He is only 12. He could have died. It was a pre-used game, but that should not make a difference. My wife is beside herself over this because she keeps thinking about what could have happened and so do I.”

Richard never mentioned why his son would have been messing about with mature rated game in the first place.

Via GamePolitics.

Sony US marketing head John Koller’s told MTV that the firm’s in ongoing discussions to bring GTA back to PSP.

“No one should sleep on that franchise,” he said.

“That’s a tremendous franchise for PlayStation in general. We’ve had two that are the top two sellers on PSP right now. So, there’s definitely continued conversations with Rockstar on all their brands.

“That’s nothing that’s left the PlayStation family.”

Koller went on to insinuate that DS may not be the right setting for the upcoming Chinatown Wars.

“It’s an interesting launch on DS,” he said. It raises some eyebrows in a lot of areas. It’ll be interesting to see how that sells.”

More through there.

Rockstar said today that Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars will get a sales boost when DSi hits stores.

Speaking with MCV, Rockstar UK boss Neil Stephens said that the general retail buzz around the new Nintendo handheld will directly influence sales of the game, even though it is to be released two weeks prior to the system’s launch.

“The launch of a new piece of hardware into the DS family will garner a new level of buzz and get some more hype going for the system”, he said.

“I think anyone releasing high profile titles on the DS will definitely benefit from that. We also think there is the potential to attract lots of new owners into the market, particularly from our fans who may have played our GTA titles on the PSP.”

Game hits stores on March 20.

More here.

According to PSU, the month’s Game Informer is talking up the idea that Rockstar will release a brand new Grand Theft Auto title by the end of 09.

“We’re not talking about new DLC or a collection of previously available DLC, we’re talking about a full retail game,” says the piece.

“We expect this title to follow the suit of previous GTAs and use a subtitle such as GTA: San Andreas, etc. Tokyo might be a possible setting for the game, but details are non-existent at this time.” – Game Informer Issue 190

We’re taking the safe, easy route and going with ‘absolutely not true.’

By Mike Bowden

Speaking in a conference call following the release of full-year financials yesterday, Take-Two execs confirmed that GTA as a franchise has been responsible for almost half the entire company’s revenue for the year.

The property took $710 million this year, compared to entire publisher revenue of $1,537.5 million for fiscal 2008.

The figure amounts to roughly 60 percent of Take-Two’s total publishing sales.

GTA: Chinatown Wars is on DS because Wii wasn’t the way to go on Nintendo platforms, according to Dan Houser.

Speaking to Nintendo Power, the Rockstar boss answered the question of why he didn’t take the series to Wii before DS thus:

It didn’t feel natural to us, I guess. It really was that the DS felt like it had a lot of interesting challenges that would be totally different from what we’d done in the past. The stylus and the chance to use minigames in that way was really interesting and exciting to us, and we thought we could integrate seamlessly between those two modes. And it would be the chance to make something really good on a handheld with our handheld-focused team. That was really why we went that way. We haven’t really done any concrete, major thinking about the Wii, one way or another. They’re sort of separate issues.

Glad that’s cleared up. Thanks, NintendoEverything.

Hugely anticipated crime MMO APB is the culmination of 20 years work on GTA, Crackdown and sandbox gaming in general, Realtime Worlds studio boss Colin Macdonald has told VG247.

“I don’t think so,” said Macdonald when asked if the game was a straight evolution from Crackdown.

“It’s been on the go for quite some time, long before people starting seeing Crackdown and we got a sense of Crackdown’s success. It’s the bastard child of everything we’ve been striving towards over the 15-20 years that Realtime Worlds, DMA and David Jone have been making games.

“It’s where we want to go in terms of sandbox gameplay and everything that started with Grand Theft Auto and was evolving through Crackdown.”

Macdonald added that APB brings plenty to the table that’s never been seen before.

“Some things we’ve taken a lot and there are also a ton of areas in APB that are completely new and unique to APB itself. So, there’s a mix of things that came from Crackdown, but as much as anything it’s just what the company was set up to do, what Dave’s always wanted to do from GTA and before Crackdown and APB.”

An APB beta is on the way, with both the public test and the game’s actual release happening sooner than many thought, Macdonald told us last week.

There is, however, no date on the title as yet.

Speaking to MTV at E3 last week, Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime said that he’s open to discussions on bringing GTA to Wii.

“You know, a GTA on the Wii is all based on what Rockstar and Take-Two want to do,” he said. “And again, from our standpoint, if they build a bottoms-up game that takes advantage of what we do well, I’d love to see it on the platform.”

The exec did say, however, that there have been no discussions on whether or not the game will ever appear on Wii.

Fils-Aime’s comments come after Nintendo announced a DS GTA game, Chinatown Wars, at E3 last week.

According to this New York Times piece, a total of 2,676 people have claimed their $35 from Rockstar after being traumatized by the Hot Coffee scenes in San Andreas.

“Am I disappointed? Sure,” said Seth R. Lesser, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs. “We can’t guess as to why now, several years later, people care or don’t care. The merits of the case were clear.”

We’ll tell you why, Seth. No one with more than three brain cells gives a flying fuck. The law’s an ass. Got it yet?

Speaking in this Reuters report, analysts Michael Pachter and Edward Williams have both said that they expect GTA IV will help move more PS3 hardware than Xbox 360s.

If sales come in at the high end of that range, the game will directly spur sales of 2 million additional PS3s in 2008, versus 1 million Xbox 360s, reckons Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan.

“I think PS3 ‘wins’ this battle,” Pachter said…

“So many people who owned the PS2 went into PlayStation family because of ‘GTA’. The release of ‘GTA4′ could expedite their decision to upgrade,” said Edward Williams, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets.

More through the link.

Infinity Ward’s Rob Bowling reckons he can get GTA IV early.

“I’m hyped about GTA,” he said, speaking in his first video blog. “GTA’s coming out next week, actually, but I talked to a contact today and hopefully I can get it by Friday. That’d be cool.”

GTA IV, as you most definitely know by now, is coming out on April 29, next Tuesday.

He doesn’t, unfortunately, say which platform he’s going to get it on. If he had, this probably would have been the most perfect thing ever.

He also says that PC DLC for Call of Duty 4 is “coming up”, although he doesn’t give any other details.

He does, however, confess to being a massive Indiana Jones fanboy and even shows the camera his whip.

See for yourself after the link.

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In a Variety interview, Rockstar chief Dan Houser’s spoken about how Rockstar’s managed to keep GTA at the top of its game for the past decade.

“The intellectual property is the main asset in the company,” he said. “That’s why GTA is still relevant 10 years later. We haven’t put one out every year. We haven’t fleeced it. And we haven’t put it on 50 different formats. We’re not per se against moving properties between different media but for GTA it just seems so perfect as a game. You lose a lot of what makes it what it is if you move it into being, say, a movie. It just never seemed interesting creatively.”

Creativity is key, said the bald boss.

“We’ve had successful launches before but our angle is always creativity,” he said. “Mainly because we’re in a position where we see games slowly gaining credibility as an art form as a medium.

“A lot of other people want to purely look at that from a business angle. For those of us who spend years slaving over making the thing, the thing isn’t ‘We make this much money.’ That isn’t interesting. The thing is, ‘Does it resonate with people and take an interesting place in their cultural fabric?’ That’s an interesting story to us.”

An awful lot more through the link.

Speaking in an investor call last night following the release of Take-Two’s Q1 financials last night, CEO Ben Feder revealed that the Grand Theft Auto franchise had sold 66 million units to date.

In addition, Midnight Club has sold 11.5 million, Civilization 8 million, Max Payne 7 million, Mafia 2 million, BioShock 2 million, Red Dead Revolver, Manhunt, and Bully all 1.5 million, and Carnival Games approaching 1 million sold thus far.