While Grand Theft Auto IV is racking up sales records, console makers are vying for bragging rights of their own, and Microsoft seems to be the victor.

GTA IV was released April 29 and global sales totaled more than $500 million in the first week alone. The first day the latest addition to the hit Rockstar Games series hit retail store shelves, sales were $310 million. More than six million copies have been sold.

The only question is, which console is the game being played on? GTA IV was developed by Rockstar North on two platforms -- the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360. Both manufacturers are reporting higher console sales as a result.

According to news reports that claim to have the inside scoop on Microsoft's sales data, Redmond is the big winner. Reportedly Xbox 360 console sales jumped 54 percent. Other reports estimate more than 60 percent of GTA IV games went to Xboxers, leaving less than 40 percent for PlayStation 3 gamers.

References:

http://www.gamerankings.com/

http://www.biline.ca/xbox_list.htm#g

Posted by Maka Asatiani at 8:40 AM | 0 comments  

Labels: Game Development, Game Reviews, Game Sharing, Microsoft, PlayStation, XBox

Gamers who play the new Grand Theft Auto IV are able to buy downloads of the music they hear through Amazon.com. It’s an interesting twist on music marketing.

When playing Grand Theft Auto IV, players can listen to over 200 songs across 16 in-game radio stations. A new GTA IV feature called ZIT lets customers 'tag' the songs they like. When a player hears a song that interests them, they can dial ZIT-555-0100 on their in-game cell phone, and a text message appears on the phone with the song title and artist. The ZIT number is recorded on the phone for easy one-key lookups of future songs.

After playing, gamers can log on to the new online Rockstar Games Social Club community site at https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/, where they can see their stats from their game play and the full list of songs they've tagged. The site will offer a link to a customized playlist of these songs on Amazon MP3, where they can preview, purchase and download the songs as 256 kbps MP3 files.

References:

http://rockstargames.com/IV/

http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/827/827005.html

Posted by Maka Asatiani at 9:32 AM | 0 comments  

Labels: Game Development, Game Sharing, Games

The accolades lavished on criminal action video game "Grand Theft Auto 4", long expected to be the best-selling game of 2008, pushed Take-Two shares as high as $27.10, more than a dollar higher than the $25.74 per share offered for the company by rival Electronic Arts Inc. It was the highest level for the stock since February 28, when it touched $27.61 three days after Electronic Arts went public with its $2 billion hostile bid.

These ratings are quite extraordinary. It's something special and helps critics to understand why Take-Two was so confident and adamant that they wanted to wait. Many analysts have long said EA may have to raise its bid by a dollar or two per share.

Take-Two and Electronic Arts were not immediately available to comment.The Tuesday launch of "Grand Theft Auto 4" is expected to be the biggest entertainment event of the year, with first-week sales of up to $400 million.

Scores on gaming review aggregation site Metacritic.org show the game, in which players work for a crime syndicate in a fictionalized New York, is on track to be the highest-rated video game of all time.

Based on more than a dozen reviews so far, the version of GTA4 for Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 game console has scored a perfect 100 while that for Microsoft Corp's Xbox 360 has achieved a score of 99.

Reference:

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/grandtheftauto4

Posted by Maka Asatiani at 9:10 PM | 2 comments  

Labels: Game Development, Game Reviews, PlayStation, XBox