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Grand Theft Auto V is around the corner…or at least the trailer is
Shares of Take-Two Interactive surged 6 percent on Tuesday. But it had nothing to do with activist investor Carl Icahn, who owns a chunk of the company or any rumors about the company's earnings on Nov. 8.
What happened is that investors looked at the website of Rockstar games, the Take-Two-owned studio behind the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Its website had been replaced by a large Grand Theft Auto logo and a Roman numeral V wrapped around a banner saying "five."
Gamers have been salivating for GTA 5 since 2008, when the last game in the series came out, so much so that at least one analyst has said that the game could sell 25 million copies in its first year.
But the timing, price, features or any other details are not yet known. The only clue the company revealed is on its website: the trailer is coming out on Nov 2.
Dan Houser, one of its renown game developers, gave an extended interview to Gamespot last week to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the third version but was mum on new details about the newest game.
When the last version came out in 2008, it made over $500 million in its first week of release. The game has been criticized for glorifying crime, street violence and drunk-driving.
Grand Theft Auto 4, delivered
There were indeed fans lined up along the streets of New York City awaiting the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV on Tuesday morning. According to the experts, they will not be disappointed.
Even the New York Times lavished praise of a sort on the video game from Take-Two Interactive’s Rockstar studio: “‘Grand Theft Auto IV’ is a violent, intelligent, profane, endearing, obnoxious, sly, richly textured and thoroughly compelling work of cultural satire disguised as fun.”
Though the vast majority of gamer blogs were even more emphatic in their love of the game, there were bound to be many naysayers if only because “GTA” deals with such edgy content, in this case an Eastern European immigrant who runs drugs, shoots cops and beats up prostitutes. The Parents Television Council thinks retailers shouldn’t carry the game according to Variety magazine.
Keep an eye on:
- Rupert Murdoch’s $580 million bid for New York’s Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, puts the News Corp chief on a collision course with the U.S. regulators. (Financial Times)
- Clear Channel Communications said a Texas court dismissed a request by a group of banks to delay a trial over funding for the $20 billion buyout of the radio station operator. (Reuters)
- Blockbuster is in talks about taking a stake in a new Viacom-led premium television channel that plans to compete with HBO, Showtime and Starz. (WSJ)
