Take-Two is reducing its fiscal 2007 guidance primarily to reflect the movement of the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 to fiscal 2008, due to additional development time required to complete the title. The title is now planned for release in the Company’s second quarter of fiscal 2008.
Strauss Zelnick, Chairman of Take-Two, stated, “With Grand Theft Auto IV, Rockstar is setting a new standard for next generation video games. Certain elements of development proved to be more time-intensive than expected, especially given the commitment for a simultaneous release on two very different platforms. We all recognize that perfecting the game is vital and I can assure everyone it will be worth the wait. We owe it to the game’s millions of fans, to our dedicated development team, and to our shareholders to make sure that Grand Theft Auto IV is a groundbreaking gaming experience that takes maximum advantage of next generation technology.”
Sam Houser, Founder and Executive Producer of Rockstar Games, added, "The new consoles are allowing us to create the Grand Theft Auto game we always dreamed about. Every aspect of the game and its design has been completely transformed. The game is huge and is pushing the hardware platforms to their absolute limits. The top engineers from Sony and Microsoft are working closely with the team in Edinburgh right now, helping us to fully leverage the power of both platforms. As always, our goal is to surpass even the wildest expectations of the game’s fans, and to create the ultimate high definition video game experience."
Bad news for Microsoft (and to a lesser extent Sony). The combo of "Madden '08," "Halo 3" and "GTA IV" was expected to bury the PS3 on Christmas and put a decent front against the Wii's holiday line-up. Now MS has lost one of the three main weapons it was counting on to move hardware. The blame game has already started between 360 and Sony fanboys blaming the other for the delay (DVD9 is too small for the game to fit, the PS3 is hard to program to, etc.) but with almost six months of extra development time the hurting frame-rate and popping backgrounds from the preview version can only improve dramatically. Between this delay and the whole "Manhunt 2" AO rating debacle it sucks to be a Take Two Interactive shareholder.
