Pachter says PS3 complications might have delayed GTA IV

There’s been much speculation lately due to the heart-breaking announcement that Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV for the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360 would be delayed for at least six months. Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter offers us an explanation why.

Pachter says “we think it is likely that the Rockstar team had difficulty in building an exceptionally complicated game for the PS3, and failed to recognise how far away from completion the game truly was until recently.”

Pachter also has an idea as to how this affected the Xbox 360 version’s launch date. He adds “we think it is also likely that Take-Two had a contractual commitment to Sony that it would not favour competitor Microsoft by launching the Xbox 360 version of GTA IV prior to launching the PS3 version, and believe that any delay of the PS3 version necessitated a delay of the Xbox 360 version.”

A possible repercussion, according to Pachter, would be negative feedback from the investors. He adds that the Take-Two management could have foreseen this and might have been able to soften the situation if correct action was applied.

This is probably the first big fumble on the part of the new management, says the analyst. “Given the delays of Manhunt and GTA, its process for monitoring projects under development appears to be a failure,” he concludes.

There’s been much speculation lately due to the heart-breaking announcement that Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV for the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360 would be delayed for at least six months. Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter offers us an explanation why.

Pachter says “we think it is likely that the Rockstar team had difficulty in building an exceptionally complicated game for the PS3, and failed to recognise how far away from completion the game truly was until recently.”

Pachter also has an idea as to how this affected the Xbox 360 version’s launch date. He adds “we think it is also likely that Take-Two had a contractual commitment to Sony that it would not favour competitor Microsoft by launching the Xbox 360 version of GTA IV prior to launching the PS3 version, and believe that any delay of the PS3 version necessitated a delay of the Xbox 360 version.”

A possible repercussion, according to Pachter, would be negative feedback from the investors. He adds that the Take-Two management could have foreseen this and might have been able to soften the situation if correct action was applied.

This is probably the first big fumble on the part of the new management, says the analyst. “Given the delays of Manhunt and GTA, its process for monitoring projects under development appears to be a failure,” he concludes.