PS3 partly to blame for GTA IV delay

PlayStation 3 development was a contributing factor to the delay of GTA IV, according to Rockstar's Jeronimo Barrera.

In an interview with MTV, the VP of product development for Rockstar Games praised the upcoming title.

"I don't see anything being bigger in 2008 in any entertainment," Barrera said. "We think it's that big, and we just have to get the word out."

The game was originally scheduled for an October 2007 release, but Rockstar made the decision to delay the title not long after the game was shown to journalists at E3 in July. At the time,CEO Strauss Zelnick cited technological "challenges" as a reason for the delay.

"It's really no surprise to anybody that the PS3 was definitely a contributing factor to that," Barrera told MTV.

"Now, we're neck and neck. That's not an issue anymore. But back then that was something we were taking into account."

His comments support previous claims by Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter.

Back in August, Pachter said it was likely that the Rockstar team had difficulty developing the game for the PS3. He also thought it likely that the company had a contractural committment with Sony that would not allow them to release the Xbox 360 version ahead of the PS3 version.

"We wanted the time, and I think we made the right choice," Barrera said.

"It was very difficult to make the choice because everybody wanted it. But we thought, you know, what with that extra bit of time, it's just going to be that much better and there will be more systems out."

Barrera promised that GTA IV would be the next leap in the evolution of the open-world games that it popularised with the GTA series.

"We don't want anybody else to raise the bar for a genre that we created and that everybody else ripped off," he said.

Barrera said that the PS3 version was identical to the Xbox 360 version, and Rockstar has denied the rumour that the Xbox 360 version will require a hard drive. Downloadable content will be made available, however, for Xbox 360 owners with a hard drive.

Rockstar has officially announced that GTA IV will be released worldwide for both PS3 and Xbox 360 on April 29.