GTA IV to arrive on 29 April

...get your orders in now

25 January 2008 12:30 GMT / By Katie Scott

It's true - it's finally going to arrive.

For all of you who have been pining for the long-awaited release of that king of games, Grand Theft Auto IV - developer Rockstar Games has confirmed that it'll be on shelves on 29 April.

Six months after the game was supposed to arrive, and after reports of a not so good plays with early versions last year, the final product is now ready to go and the team at Computer and Videogames Magazine has already had a go and is raving.

Bloggers are pointing to the dispute between the developers of Manhunt 2 and censors as a possible reason why GTA IV was delayed.

Australian censors have given the game a 15 rating, and gamers are already wondering if Rockstar have toned it down to avoid costly clashes.

However, what we do know is that the development of the PS3 definitely contributed to the delay.

VP of product development for Rockstar Games, Jeronimo Barrera told MTV, that the tech challenges that were originally blamed for the delay were affected by the new console.

"It's really no surprise to anybody that the PS3 was definitely a contributing factor to that", he said.

He continued: "Now, we're neck and neck [in developing the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions]. That's not an issue anymore. But back then that was something we were taking into account".

"We wanted the time, and I think we made the right choice. 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 added his confidence that GTA IV will be the biggest launch of the year, saying "We don't want anybody else to raise the bar for a genre that we created and that everybody else ripped off".

He said that the PS3 version is identical to the Xbox 360 version, and 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.