When will it appear? Who knows. Who knows if it is for this generation or next?



In any case, what we do know is that it's been almost three years since the last release of The Ballad of Gay Tony, the final installment of the Grand Theft Auto 4 series, so it's reasonable to assume that GTA5 has been in development for sometime.  Oh year, a few little games came out from Rockstar in the interim, Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3...



Quite a bit changed in the GTA4 world, even between the 2008 release of Nico's tale and the two expansions.  If you have not played the expansions, GTA5 should be a pleasant surprise for you as Rockstar introduced quite a few things that players had been asking for since GTA3 (in mission checkpointing, saving away from home, easier star reduction).



So what do we know about GTA5? Wikipedia!



The fifteenth game in the series overall, GTA V is to be set in fictional Los Santos in the state of San Andreas and its surrounding areas, based on modern-day Los Angeles and Southern California.



And that's about it. The first (and only teaser trailer) seen so far indicates a guy who moved to LA to get away from his past, only to have it catch up with him. (Next post).  Clearly there is some real estate development scam going on as well. It also shows a bank robbery, recalling one of the fan favorite missions from GTA4.  The GTA5 logo also features design elements from US currency.

And here are the only screens so far:

aspro said:

Shenmue, The Getaway and Yakuza prove North American audiences are not ready for "foreign" urban settings.


Did you play any of the GTA4 Liberty Stories?

Do you mean the PSP game?  That was before GTAIV, I thought of them as expansions or add-ons to the GTAIII games.  I enjoyed both Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories, even though I didn't complete either of them.  I just get too frustrated with GTA games.  In fact the only one I finished, and I absolutely loved was Chinatown on DS.  Wish they would do another like that though I know it's unlikely as it wasn't a commercial success.

I'm not really looking forward to GTAV, just can't feel any excitement.  Think it will be in Vice City again, even though the way V is in the logo kinda hints California.  Wish they had the balls to set it in a cool place outside of the US.  I know they tried London and Tokyo in the past but that was before it was any good.

WHERE THE FUCK IS THIS GAME?! I need Take Two stock to spike damn it!! I want money!!!

Seriously what is wrong with this gen, its the longest gen and we get one true GTA. Didnt GTA4 come out in 2008? Its been 4 years what the fuck is going on?!?!

Not that we expected it, but no GTA5 for at least the next 3 months:

"The first half of Take-Two's question and answer session, during today's first quarter investor call, revolved around the theme of Grand Theft Auto 5 and its current status. Whether directly or indirectly, three questions in a row tried to eke out any details about the game, which appears to be part of the publisher's high revenue projections but still has an official "TBA" release date.



"Strauss, we've heard nothing, next to nothing, on GTA 5 development over the last couple months," said Mike Hickey of National Alliance Securities. "We've seen a couple screenshots. The game is believed by the street to be implied by your guidance for this fiscal year, but what believability do we have that this game is actually going to come out this year?"


CEO Strauss Zelnick responded, "We haven't talked about a release date. So obviously we can't talk about the credibility of a release date that we haven't announced."


Pushed further on whether the publisher is receiving consistent updates, the CEO deflected.


"We wouldn't talk publicly about the way we communicate with our teams internally," replied Zelnick. "We are blessed to be in business with the Rockstar folks and everyone knows that I feel that way. We have the best creative teams in the business across our company.""

Dean Takahashi:

ake-Two Interactive reported weak earnings yesterday, and it was predictably vague about when its Rockstar Games label would ship Grand Theft Auto V, a street-brawling, free-for-all title that could be one of the biggest games of the year: when it ships. Analysts say that simple math suggests Rockstar will ship the game before March 31, 2013.

For gamers, that’s good news. The Grand Theft Auto series has a cult following that has gone mainstream. In 2008, Grand Theft Auto IV sold more than 6 million units in its first week, grossing more than $500 million in revenue. Expectations for GTA V are likely to be higher than that, given the huge growth in the installed base of consoles since 2008. Game fans are salivating at every rumor.

Strauss Zelnick, the chief executive and chairman of Take-Two, said on the analyst call yesterday that the Rockstar team was making “substantial progress” on GTA V, but he declined to disclose a release date for the game. At the same time, Zelnick only slightly lowered the expectations for annual sales for the fiscal year, even though the company missed its target by a long shot in its first fiscal quarter.

Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Securities, said that he does not believe Take-Two can hit its target for revenues in the year ending March 31, 2013 unless it ships GTA V. Take-Two is targeting revenue of $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion for the year, with 55 percent of that figure coming from Rockstar (about $963 million) and 45 percent ($788 million) from the 2K Games label. For Rockstar, the Max Payne 3 title is expected to generate no more than $250 million in revenues, and the company’s older catalog of games could generate $150 million. That leaves $563 million in revenue for the fiscal year that Pachter believes could only come from GTA V.

But the chances for an announcement are declining. Rockstar made no announcement at E3 in June, and speculation is mixed about whether it will announce the game later this month at Gamescom in Germany. Pachter expects that a preholiday release is less likely but still possible, but a first calendar quarter release in 2013 might be likely.

Ben Schachter, an analyst at Macquarie Research, agreed that GTA V is likely to ship in the current fiscal year. Atul Bagga, an analyst at Lazard Capital, added that the management guidance suggests GTA V will ship in the first calendar quarter of 2013. Whenever Take-Two makes the announcement, the stock will probably take off, said Colin Sebastian, an analyst at R.W. Baird.

Take-Two could always delay the game and lower its earnings in the future, but that’s a pretty big bomb to drop on a stock that has been battered this year due to missed expectations for games such as Spec Ops: The Line and Max Payne 3. But Zelnick has always been willing to take short-term hits in favor of long-term investment, and the Rockstar leaders, Sam and Dan Hauser, are the ones in charge of production on GTA V. And they’re not known for shipping games early.

Just to memorialize it, since this is the GTA5 Official thread: (I tried the e-mail on the Epsilon site, it bounced back).

That could change in the coming weeks with the discovery of the Epsilonism Today twitter feed, linked on the website for the fictional San Andreas cult.


The Epsilon Program site doesn't appear to have changed much since its time as a San Andreas teaser site, but two tweets in the last week read:


"Seeking without paying is not living, it is living on the cheap. #KIFFLOM" and "We as a people have consistently got things backwards. #KIFFLOM" - KIFFLOM is the mantra of the Epsilon Program.