Today's news that Bioshock Infinite would be delayed to February 2013 provided a strong suggestion that Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive will release Grand Theft Auto V this year in the Fall gaming season. Unfortunately, we're still left wondering, so here are five reasons to believe and give in to the hope.
5) Bioshock Infinite's Delay
Many skeptics pointed to BioShock Infinite's October release date as the reason for a Spring 2013 GTA V release. Publishing two high-profile titles in the same window would essentially force Take-Two to canabalize its own profits. This would make both titles less of a success and lead investors to question the company's judgement.
Of course, with Bioshock Infinite well out of the way, Rockstar Games and Take-Two are ready to drop an even bigger bomb on the holiday shopping season.
4) Analysts Analyzing
The soulless financial husks out there continue to suggest that Grand Theft Auto V is ready and will release in the Fall of 2012. Michael Pachter, the professional mouth-piece of gaming money-markets, didn't hesitate to reiterate the high possibility of GTA V's release this year:
In our view, the delay opens the window for Grand Theft Auto V to be released in October 2012. We speculate that once Rockstar Games notified Take-Two that GTA V would be ready by October, Take-Two gave Irrational Games the option to spend more time fine-tuning Bioshock Infinite. Although we were confident that both games would sell millions of units when it appeared that they would be released in close proximity, we think that the delay will alleviate any wallet-share concerns and ensure that both games receive the undivided attention of Take-Two's management and marketing teams, and will ensure that retail support is optimized.
3) The Globalization of Rockstar Games
It's true that Max Payne 3 and Grand Theft Auto V are projects on a massive scale. Most publishers and developers would never dream of taking on these two games so closely together. However, it can very easily be said that Max Payne 3 is not in the same class as GTA V. With development studios around the world, Max Payne 3's core team was heavily assisted throughout development.
While Rockstar Vancouver was the lead team on Max Payne 3, additional work has been done by Rockstar New England, Rockstar London, and Rockstar Toronto. Two years ago, Red Dead Redemption was completed through a team effort of Rockstar San Diego and Rockstar North.
In total, Rockstar Games has nine studios at its disposal: Japan, Leeds, Lincoln, London, New England, North, San Diego, Toronto, and Vancouver. What have they all been doing?
Next: The two biggest reasons to prepare for GTA V's release this Fall…
It's Coming…
2) Rockstar Doesn't Give A F***
Reports continue to state that Grand Theft Auto V is slated for a Fall 2012 release date. While frequent rumors also suggest a Spring 2013 release, employee resumes and more continue to point to a 2012 release window for the title. Resulting in an even split, we have to defer to other reasoning to determine the likely launch date, but there's a key piece of information people tend to overlook…
Rockstar Games simply does not give a f*** about Call of Duty, or Halo, or any other title out there. It is unquestionably, the biggest, highest-profile, loudest franchise out there. GTA continually pushes the market and the medium forward. Following GTA III, full-3D games were a must. Following GTA: San Andreas, sandbox titles were in vogue. Following GTA IV, developers began focusing more and more on story.
Grand Theft Auto is simply too big a deal to possibly be missed thanks to some Mayan calendar bullshit. Of course, if history has taught us anything….
1) Grand Theft Auto Games Typically Release In The Fall
The original Grand Theft Auto first released in Europe in October '97. Grand Theft Auto 2 released on Windows and PlayStation in September and October of '99. Grand Theft Auto III launched on the PlayStation 2 on October 22nd, 2001. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City followed suit a year later, releasing on October 27th, 2002. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas furthered this trend by releasing October 26th, 2004. Even Grand Theft Auto Advance for the GBA released October 25th, 2004. PSP off-shoot Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories released on October 24th, 2005. The following year, Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories for the PSP on October 31st, 2006.
Grand Theft Auto IV is the only main-series entry in an outlier release date of April 29th, 2008. In fact, GTA IV was long slated for an October release in 2007, with Rockstar even stating that the game was still on track for a "Late October release" after analysts questioned the title's strength against other holiday releases that year. In fact, it wasn't until August 2007 that Rockstar finally pushed Grand Theft Auto IV's release date back to the Spring window.
It's true that Rockstar has grown quite fond of releasing their big title for the year in May, with Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3 enjoying that window all to themselves, but history seems to tread heavily in the company's hearts and minds. Still, let's not forget that the teaser trailer for GTA V debuted way back in November of 2011.
Releasing the game a full 19 months later seems a little excessive right? We're ready for GTA V now!
Which release window do you think is more likely?
