GTA IV Delayed, Everyone is Screwed

Take-Two dropped a bomb on the gaming world today when they announced that GTA IV will be delayed until as late as April 2008. Although not listing anything specific, chairman Strauss Zelnick stated, "certain elements of the development proved to be more time-intensive than expected, especially given the commitment for simultaneous release on two very different platforms."

While again, this could mean anything I can already smell the Xbot uprising with pitchforks and torches in hand. If the game was showable on 360 and Rockstar's previous statements about the PS3 development schedule lagging behind some might think the difficult PS3 SDKs might have something to do with it. There is no way Rockstar would risk Sony's ire or forego the doubtless money they threw at Rockstar for equal release, if the PS3 version wouldn't be ready for release then neither would the 360's.

Now speculation aside, lets examine how badly this screws up everyone's holiday plans. The perfect storm Microsoft touted this E3 will be one title short, Sony won't have any established blockbusters this Christmas, and Wii users will have a minor deficiency of envy. While this monkey wrench has all the suits running around trying to figure out what to do about this average Joe gamer will just have to wait before they find their special someone.