Take-Two's just re-confirmed it will ship DLC for the 360 version of GTA IV in fiscal 2009, beginning November 1 this year.
A call has gone out for teens to help Briggs Digital Media, an internet TV company, cash in on the success of the GTA franchise.
Kotaku writes: "While we've seen countless story regarding children using Grand Theft Auto as their inspiration to do wrong, it's extremely rare that we see news about GTA being cited as a cause for good. It happened on August 27th around 9pm, as the Norris family of five was heading to Diamond, Illinois to visit relatives. Their 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee swerved off the road, hitting a guardrail and flipping four times before coming to a stop, caving in the roof and smashing out the back window. With her mother hanging upside down and her father pinned against the steering wheel, 11-year-old Audrey Plique climbed out of the back window and helped her parents and two younger siblings escape the car. The motivation for her heroic act, according to her mother Karen Norris?
The government of Thailand was in an uproar after a nineteen year old man murdered a taxi driver and told police he was reenacting Grand Theft Auto. The extremely conservative Ministry of Culture has taken action by banning several video games from the country.
TGR - "In our last edition of Rumor Killers we brought you word that Microsoft was expecting to release the first batch of exclusive Grand Theft Auto 4 DLC in November, alongside the new Xbox Experience. Turns out that might just be wishful thinking on Microsoft's part though, and anyone looking for a reason to go back into Liberty City will have to wait until 2009.
A source close to Rockstar has told VG247 that Microsoft is "wrong" to expect the 360 GTA IV DLC in 2008.
shacknews.com: The use of Grand Theft Auto as a scapegoat isn't going anywhere, says law professor Ashley Lipson. The trick is worth too much money.
TGR - "Gearbox Software is no stranger to high profile games, particularly those of the shooter variety. The company behind the Brothers in Arms series has been hinting for a while now that they're working on something big, something huge, something so mind-blowing if they dared speak its name we would all prostrate ourselves and weep uncontrollably for weeks. The only problem is that we had no idea what this project was, until now."
PSU writes: Grand Theft Auto IV unsurprisingly sits at the top of the pile for worldwide sales in 2008, shifting a whopping 6.29 million copies since the beginning of the year.
Ripten writes:
Electronic Arts always seem to get the sh!t@y end of the stick when being discussed in the gaming community. Not least because of their aggressive buyout of top developers such as Pandemic, Bullfrog and such like, but also the tendency for them to invest huge amounts of money in acquiring licenses only to produce a bunch of shovelware that sits atop the festive gaming charts year in year out.
Gamedaily.biz writes: "The folks at Nielsen Games have released a new report on Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV, which looks at reasons for purchase, platform preference and perhaps most interestingly the ability for minors to get their hands on the controversial title. In fact, Nielsen found that 17 percent of respondents in their survey who had purchased GTA IV were between the ages of seven and 16.
BioShock dev lead Ken Levine has spoken for the first time about his Take-Two compadres at Rockstar, saying the Sam Houser is the "most intense guy in the world" and that he shares the Houser's method of creating great games: "digging your f***ing teeth in."
Bungie's Halo 3 took top Game of the Year honors during the G-Phoria awards last night, broadcast by game-oriented cable television network G4.
In an op-ed for the Star Online, Mohamed Idris, president of a Malaysian consumer rights organization has called for a ban on Grand Theft Auto and similarly violent video games.
WSBTV writes: "Fulton County officials said they have arrested three teens and charged them with 57 felony counts in connection with a recent series of car bombings with Molotov cocktails in the city of Milton, north of Atlanta.
...And in GTA IV, plants are one of the ONLY things you can't destroy...
Maxconsole writes: "Rockstar games has updated the Official GTA IV website and it is now carrying a Games for Windows LIVE logo. This has sparked speculation that GTA may soon allow for cross platform play between PC and Xbox 360 and the PC may also be receiving the delayed 'exclusive' Xbox 360 GTA IV DLC..."
GameTrailers TV and Spike TV have announced that they will be interviewing Michael Hollick, the voice of Niko Bellic, in an upcoming episode of GameTrailers TV. During this interview, they will be talking about the upcoming downloadable content for Grand Theft Auto IV.
GamePolitics reports: "Absent speculation that Grand Theft Auto somehow played a role, the murder of a Bangkok cab driver by a 19-year-old-man in some ways appears similar to the typical murder of a cab driver in the United States.