Recently, gaming’s Nostradamus, Michael Pachter, confirmed that Rockstar North was working on Grand Theft Auto V. In the same statement, Pachter said that he expected GTA V to drop at some point in 2010 or at the latest, 2011. Interesting. We decided to reach out and see what another analyst thought. Enter EEDAR's director of analyst services.
Analyst director Jesse Divnich agrees that GTA V is happening, however, Divnich isn’t exactly buying Pachter’s timeline. According to Divnich, Take-Two’s 2010 portfolio is off the chain, and if the Agent drops in the same year, GTA V could “cannibalize” sales of the new IP. So, even if GTA V was completed before October 31, 2010, he believes Take-Two would be shooting itself in the foot by releasing it in 2010.
Analyst fight.
“Rockstar North’s primary development team is currently focusing on two titles, GTA V and Agent. It is correct that there is a small subset team whose only job is to work on upcoming GTA IV DLC,” Divnich told Destructoid.
“Given the delay of the original GTA IV, it would be difficult to conclude with certainty that the next installment will hit before October 31st 2010. Furthermore, Take-Two is already on track to obliterate our wallets over the next 12 months with BioShock 2, Max Payne 3, Borderlands, Mafia II, Red Dead Redemption, and Agent,” he continued. “I do not see the financial need to stack their next fiscal year -- ending October 31, 2010 -- anymore than it already is. In addition, if Agent is released in 2010, I would expect it in the back-half, which if a GTA V was to hit store shelves plus or minus three months of that date, it could cannibalize sales.”
We asked CEO cat* when it thought GTA V would drop. It looked at us, blinked a few times, then went back to sleep again. We’ll take that to mean 2011.
*CEO cat doubles as our analyst in times of dire need.
Contest:
8:00 PM on 07.16.2009
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Give me Saint's Row 3!
Seriously though, analysts are here to speculate on the possible, not make inflammatory comments and fuel rumor that what they're saying is true,because I'm sure with their number knowledge that their somewhat preposterous speculation is more definitive than the speculation of everyone else.
My money's on CEO Cat.
It just seems like they totally forgot that people playing GTA want to be bad asses. They focused so much on making it real that the controls and mechanics aren't even tuned for speed and combat! You have far too much turn delay, walk-to-jog-to-sprint delay, and even smashing the window of a car is painfully slow. Niko should be hurdling fences, sliding across the hoods of cars, turning on a dime, full of adrenaline. The team should have worked on reducing the clunkiness of pre-set actions, like opening car doors and climbing walls. If they want to revolutionize GTA V like GTA III, then they need to work on character control and interaction. It doesn't even have to be unrealistic, it's completely realistic to imagine practically sprinting from a dead stop after a few bullets wiz by your head.
Lastly, the graphics weren't that awesome and there was plenty of cutbacks to graphics during driving sequences, and it almost seems like the character, cars, and game chugs so slow because the code couldn't handle the mechanics operating any faster! In closing, GTA V should be sharper, more innovative, and oriented to the gamer (not some absurd, overcompensating notion of video game realism).