Grand Theft Auto IV gets shot back to 2008

New York (NY) - Take Two’s anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV will miss the pivotal holiday timeline for 2007, adding several months to the wait time for fans of the series.

The newest addition in the open-ended street life game series, which was originally given a release date of October 18, has been pushed back to spring 2008.

Grand Theft Auto IV will be the first GTA title for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, and as such will be the first entry to support high definition video output.

GTA IV was expected to be part of a colossal melee for this holiday season, with powerhouses like Halo 3, Lair, and Rock Band all converging in the final months of the year.

Rockstar said it needed to push back the release date because of increased development time required to fit everything into the game.

"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," said Rockstar Games founder Sam House in a statement.