Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto IV
GTA IV Boxart
Developers	Rockstar North Rockstar Toronto (PC)
Publishers	Rockstar Games Capcom (Japan) Cyberfront (Japan PC)
Platform	PS3 Xbox 360 PC
Release dates	PS3 29 April 2008 29 April 2008 29 April 2008 30 October 2008 Xbox 360 29 April 2008 29 April 2008 29 April 2008 30 October 2008 PC 2 December 2008 3 December 2008 3 December 2008 20 March 2009
Engine	RAGE
Protagonist	Niko Bellic
Location	Liberty City Alderney State
Year	2008

Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) is the eleventh Grand Theft Auto game in the series. The game was developed by Rockstar North, and was published and released by Rockstar Games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 console systems. It was released to widespread hype on April 29th 2008, scoring positive reviews from virtually the entire gaming press. Though speculations have been made, no confirmation of a PC version has been announced.

"Life is complicated; I killed people, smuggled people, sold people.
Perhaps here, things will be different."

Grand Theft Auto IV is set in 2008 in a redesigned Liberty City, a stylized recreation of New York City. Niko Bellic is an Eastern European that has come to America to find a better life, following the the advice of his cousin Roman; however, when he arrives, he finds that Roman has been lying - he isn't rich, he isn't popular, and he's actually in a load of trouble. Niko has been duped to solve Roman's problems, and soon ends up in trouble himself. However, we soon find out that Niko isn't here in Liberty City just because of the supposed fortune and hot babes; he has ulterior motives...

Game Information

• Liberty City in GTA IV
• 100% Completion
• Missions in GTA IV
• Characters in GTA IV
• Vehicles in GTA IV
• Weapons in GTA IV
• Internet in GTA IV
• Radio Stations in GTA IV
• TV Shows in GTA IV
• Cheats in GTA IV
• Girlfriends in GTA IV
• Friendships in GTA IV
• Multiplayer in GTA IV
• GTA IV Tips
• GTA4 Gripes
• Trailers
• Features
• Critical Reception and Sales

Pre-Release Information

Leading up to the release of GTA IV, Rockstar were very secretive about the content of the game. The only official information released was the four trailers and some 'teaser' updates to the GTA IV websites. Due to this, many fans attempted to extract and leak game information from various sources, which resulted in everything from maps to copies of the game being leaked onto the Internet.

Many reviews of the game were produced before release, but Rockstar unusually insisted that the gameplay happened whilst supervised in a hotel room, rather than sending out copies of the game to reviewers. Earlier occurences of this involved a Rockstar employee playing the game to demonstrate it to reporters, without the press being able to play it themselves.

Almost all of the reviews of GTA IV were perfect 10 scores.

Reception

On the first day of release, 3.6 million sales of GTA IV were recorded, equivalent to $310 million. In the first week, over 6 million copies had been sold, with an estimated retail value of approximately $500 million - a new record for the entire entertainment industry. As Take Two chairman, Strauss Zelnick, stated, "Grand Theft Auto IV's first week performance represents the largest launch in the history of interactive entertainment, and we believe these retail sales levels surpass any movie or music launch to date." These impressive sale numbers easily beats out Halo 3's first day ($170 million) and week-long ($300 million) sales, who was the last to hold the record for sales in this given time.

According to retailers more than 60% of all GTA games sold in the first week were the Xbox 360 version, although UK supermarket ASDA reported that their Playstation 3 version was outselling the 360 version 3 to 1. According to retailers, roughly 40% of Xbox 360 consoles are now bought with a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV, and Xbox sales increased by 54% in the week of the GTA IV launch.

Within the first week, GTA IV also became the most played game on Xbox LIVE. More than 2.3 million gamers played GTA IV online in that week, and that had unlocked 12 million achievements worth 100 million gamerscore points between them. The average Xbox LIVE gamer spent 4 hours player GTA IV online that week, meaning Xbox LIVE hit 1 million concurrent users within the launch week of GTA IV.

External Links

• Official Website
• GTA-IV.net (Part of The GTA Place)
• GTA4.net (Part of GTANet)
• PlanetGTA
• GTA4.TV