Development delay for GTA IV

Rockstar Games has announced that its hotly-watched Grand Theft Auto IV has been delayed until 2008.

The game, developed by Edinburgh’s Rockstar North, was due to be released this October.

Now, "due to additional development time required to complete the title", the game will not appear until April 2008 at the earliest, moving from publisher Take Two’s 2007 Q4 slot to second quarter of 2008.

In the official statement, Sam Houser, founder and executive producer of Rockstar Games, commented: "The new consoles are allowing us to create the Grand Theft Auto game we always dreamed about. Every aspect of the game and its design has been completely transformed. The game is huge and is pushing the hardware platforms to their absolute limits. The top engineers from Sony and Microsoft are working closely with the team in Edinburgh right now, helping us to fully leverage the power of both platforms.

"As always, our goal is to surpass even the wildest expectations of the game’s fans, and to create the ultimate high definition video game experience."