Grand Theft Auto IV Special Edition

During a late afternoon conference call on Thursday for analysts and media, Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick said that he didn't see much benefit in discussing the specific technical issues that forced he and Rockstar to delay Grand Theft Auto IV until Spring 2008, and he remained true to his word. But that doesn't mean that the staff of Level Up can't engage in some informed speculation about what may have taken place.

Until earlier this week, when a source informed us that Microsoft had sent a shock team of engineers to help Rockstar complete the game, much of the gossip surrounding problems with GTA IV centered around the Playstation 3 version. Rockstar has been pretty quiet about that SKU; the game has only been demonstrated to media running on the Xbox 360; the GTA IV trailer wasn't even shown during Sony's E3 press conference, ostensibly because Rockstar never responded to requests for footage from Sony PR. Throw that into the mix with all of the non-Rockstar scuttlebutt--several developers have said that it's difficult to develop for PS3; porting from Xbox 360 to PS3 is said to be harder than the other way around; yet many developers are choosing to lead on Xbox 360 because of its larger installed base, resulting in PS3 versions of games shipping weeks after the Xbox 360 SKU has already gone out the door--and the stage was set for an October surprise: GTA IV becoming a de facto Xbox 360 exclusive. Instead, both versions have been pushed back to next year. What happened?

We believe that Rockstar is having difficulty with both versions of the game, not just the PS3. GTA IV executive Sam Houser basically said as much in the press release, "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." That was echoed by Zelnick on the conference call, who said, " There are technical challenges across the board on both PS3 and 360." If Rockstar could have completed the 360 version in time for its previously scheduled October release, it would have done so. Why? Because Take-Two definitely needs the revenue from what is by far its biggest franchise, and Microsoft desperately wanted to convert PlayStation 2 fans to Xbox 360 aficionados.

With a $50 million deal already in place for two downloadable follow-up episodes exclusive to the Xbox 360, it's likely that Microsoft and Take-Two/Rockstar also had a co-marketing arrangement in place, where Microsoft and Take-Two would spend an equal amount of money to promote GTA IV, in exchange for Microsoft getting to slap its logo at the end of all of those costly TV ads. In fact, it wouldn't surprise us if Rockstar and Take-Two had already all-but-delayed the PS3 version to triage the Xbox 360 version for this holiday, only to have their hands forced when, at yesterday's product review, it became clear to both sides that even the 360 version could not be completed this year to Rockstar's exacting standards.

How did Rockstar end up in this situation? First, each of the 3-D Grand Theft Auto games--GTA III, GTA Vice City, GTA San Andreas, GTA Liberty City Stories and GTA Vice City Stories--were initially developed for one platform at a time. Ditto for the original Manhunt. So Rockstar North has little experience with simultaneous development. Second, the console versions of GTA were developed on external middleware like Renderware, while GTA IV is being developed on Rockstar's own Rockstar Advanced Game Engine technology, aka RAGE. So while it's true that the company put RAGE through its paces for last year's Table Tennis, there's a big difference between two characters in a confined arena and a simulation of New York City filled with hundreds of people.

In short, it looks like the always-ambitious Rockstar simply bit off more than it could chew across the board; added to the challenge of developing for two powerhouse consoles simultaneously, the company finally had to admit defeat and ask for more time. And while this decision creates some short-term challenges for Take-Two and Microsoft, as gamers, we're happy that Houser is holding the line on the game's quality rather than pushing it out the door for the sake of the bottom line. Thankfully, for Rockstar, it's not all about the C.R.E.A.M.