In technical, company jargon, Rockstar has moved its release from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 to the second quarter of its fiscal 2008. In real-world terms, this means the title will ship sometime between February 1st and April 30th, 2008.
The reason for the delay is simple: Rockstar North needs more time to polish it. Given the game's exceptionally high expectations, Rockstar has chosen to push back the release a handful of months rather than rushing the title out to market.
Sam Houser, founder and executive producer of Rockstar Games, had this to say: "The new consoles are allowing us to create the Grand Theft Auto game we always dreamed about. 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. As always, our goal is to surpass even the wildest expectations of the game's fans, and to create the ultimate high definition video game experience."
