GTA IV Delay Rumors Unfounded

Take-Two Interactive chairman Strauss Zelnick went out of his way to reassure GTA fans that the latest game in the series is still headed for release before the end of April.

After accidentally kicking the Internet rumor mill into high gear with comments made about Grand Theft Auto IV’s release date last week, Take-Two Interactive chairman Strauss Zelnick stepped in to clarify his remarks on Friday. The verdict: it’s still on track.

The game was originally pushed back from its October 16 release date back in early August, sending fans into a frenzy but reassuring them a release in the second quarter of 2008. That reassurance fell into doubt when Zelnick was asked whether Take-Two was ready to give another firm release date at last week’s BMO Capital Markets conference, which Zelnick said the company wasn’t ready to do yet. In the flurry of over-analyzation  that followed, skeptical fans spun this response into an indication that Take-Two might actually wait for the holiday season to roll around again in October 2008 to release the game.

Speaking to Gamespot, Zelnick denied such rumors. “I wasn’t intending to be newsworthy,” he said. “When asked about the release date, I confirmed the previous release date we’d given, which is our second fiscal quarter. That’s to say sometime between the beginning of February and the end of April.”