Author Topic: GTA IV Release Date Statements Distorted  (Read 316 times)

Elano

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GTA IV Release Date Statements Distorted
« on: November 17, 2007, 10:58:48 AM »
On Tuesday, staff member Adriaan here at PlanetGTA did an excellent job at covering the comments of Take-Two Interactive Software Chairman Strauss Zelnick regarding the release date of Grand Theft Auto IV. I cannot say the same for other big gaming websites. Nevertheless, here is the complete question and answer transcribed word-for-word by me, or you can listen to the audio that I ripped, edited and uploaded myself:

Question: "You guys have talked about Grand Theft Auto IV being February 1st to April 30th [this is the financial quarter Q2 2008 for the company]. Um, obviously there's been rumors that, you know, it could be later, and then recently the gaming community has had rumors that it could be earlier. Just help us to understand when we should expect a firm date on when that release could be, and you know..."

Strauss Zelnick: "It's a fair question. I think given that we, you know, we obviously weren't able to stick to our firm date the last time. We're going to give the firm date when we are utterly convinced that we have it. And then, and that isn't right now.

You know, we do feel that the title is being developed so that it's going to be fantastic. We know that it's highly anticipated. I think there was a concern initially...when we slipped that uh, we sort of "missed the boat" in terms of Christmas and I think that concern has been alleviated. I think that most people, even though obviously it wasn't the intent, most people say well it's ok, you know, the...hardware penetration is going to grow over Christmas and because this is a must-have title, it's probably ok that you're not selling it in the Christmas season. So I think, um, you know, right now our view is...put out a really high quality title.

Obviously, we aren't in the business of disappointing, um, investors, and we're certainly in the business of doing what we say we're going to do, so we'll...we'll give you the firm release date when we know we can stick to it."
Strauss Zelnick simply answered a question at a conference as best as he could. The idea that he said "it will probably be delayed again" or that he should have said "you know what, here's the release date" is absurd.

The audacity that some gaming websites have shown is ridiculous. GamesIndustry.biz decided to put "Take 2 refuses to pinpoint GTA IV release" as their headline. The key word there is "refuses" which holds a certain negative connotation.

GameSpot decided that they wanted to make their headline "GTA IV falling out of Q2 2008 window?" While they end up looking intelligent by somewhat correcting the confusion, it was a bad choice of words for the headline, because let's face it...there are a lot of stupid people out there that will only see the headline. When I consistently get e-mails that say things like "what why vice city for the ps2 prostitutes and girlfriends in san venturas," I kind of have to really question my faith in certain people. Some of the completely deranged GameSpot forum members don't restore my faith either...

Several people have even misinterpreted GameSpot's explanation. Also, GamePro called Take-Two "evasive," PSX Extreme claimed that the company "won't commit" to a release date, and PortalIT completely screwed up and joked that the game will "ship at the same time as Duke Nukem" and then seriously stated that the game "is looking forward to a new delay." The list of websites not being straightforward goes on and on.

Anyway, thanks to Adriaan for posting the news before anyone else even though another site that I mentioned got all of the credit. As a note, I did not copy and paste GameSpot's transcription of the audio. I completely re-transcribed the audio before I even knew that GameSpot had posted it.

 

Piffmeister2008

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Re: GTA IV Release Date Statements Distorted
« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2007, 05:58:29 AM »
looking forward to it!
 

Dodgers#1

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Re: GTA IV Release Date Statements Distorted
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2008, 09:47:11 AM »
can wait for it to drop
 

boycriedwolf619

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Re: GTA IV Release Date Statements Distorted
« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2008, 11:08:11 PM »
 

cantoms

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Re: GTA IV Release Date Statements Distorted
« Reply #4 on: January 13, 2008, 01:18:51 PM »
can wait for it to drop

This is the only game for the PS3 that interests me.  I bought my PS3 in October when they were cheap thinking that GTA was close. 
 


K-9

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Re: GTA IV Release Date Statements Distorted
« Reply #6 on: March 03, 2008, 02:42:49 PM »
Finally ya dig
 

juandoe

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Re: GTA IV Release Date Statements Distorted
« Reply #7 on: June 24, 2008, 01:23:52 AM »
wtv