Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars coming to iPhone

Rockstar Games announced that it will be bringing Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars to iPhone and iPod touch this fall. As with the DS version of the game, the iPod Touch and iPhone version of the game follows the story of Huang Lee, a young Triad member who travels to Liberty City after the mysterious death of his father.

Earlier this year the company announced plans to bring the DS game to Sony’s PlayStation Portable. With the PSP Go finally announced, there will probably even be a digital distribution of it on PlayStation Network.. Anyway, Here’s what Rockstar has to say about the Apple platform versions:

“Chinatown Wars is a perfect match for the iPhone and iPod touch,” said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. “We are very excited to bring this incredibly ambitious version of Liberty City, with this level of detail and immersive gameplay on Apple’s new gaming platforms.“

Perhaps what the Sam Houser is really looking to do with this game on the PSP and Apple platforms is rewrite history; after all, the DS version of the game was a critical success (read Crispy Gamer’s GTA: China Town Wars review) but a retail failure by all accounts. So perhaps by re-releasing it on other platforms China Town Wars will get the respect it deserves and from where it matters: gamers. If Rockstar Leeds uses the same formula perhaps that will finally happen.

You can learn more about every version of the game by visiting www.rockstargames.com/chinatownwars.

Take-Two Hit with $50M Q1 Losses

It looks like the 2009 fiscal year is getting off to a rough start for Take-Two. Addressing investors this week, the company posted its first quarter numbers and revealed that it has taken a loss of $50 million, up from the $38 million loss posted during the same period last year. Ironically, the company’s actual revenue was up for the quarter, up roughly 7 percent from $240.4 million last year to $256.8 million for this most recent quarter. The loss for the quarter in spite of higher revenue was blamed on the higher than expected costs related to “unusual legal matters” related mainly to the attempted takeover by Electronic Arts, business reorganization, marketing, and R&D costs.

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Take-Two and Housers For Sale

Those old Houser boys are worth their weight in gold if you ask game industry executives around the world and show a potential problem for Take-Two next year when their contracts expire. Some hypothesize that this was one of the key reasons why EA has backed off acquiring Take-Two among other reasons. Analysts in particular are making great hay of this fact today, including the outspoken Wedbush Morgan analyst and part-time messiah Michael Pachter.

According to Pachter, Sam and Dan Houser could entertain other offers in February, perhaps moving on to work for another company like EA.. or Activision… or Ubisoft.. basically anyone willing to bend over backward to sign them. Take Two could learn the terrible lesson that EA learned when a number of high profile developers from the Medal of Honor team broke away to form Infinity Ward. That company went on to create some serious competition with Call of Duty, a game franchise that has gone on to beat the ever-loving piss out of the team’s former franchise.

While the brothers aren’t developers, they are the creativity (and some say the tyranny) behind the development of the Grand Theft Auto series. They are like Hollywood producers who help form and shape development into a highly polished, commercially viable product that appeals to its rabid and hardcore fan base. But imagine if the Housers walk away to EA or Activision and help create some competition for GTA. Imagine if THQ signed them and they helped shape the future of Saint’s Row or some other high profile action game.. It is all a possibility and it leaves Take-Two even more vulnerable because GTA is the company’s top source of income, or as we call it around these parts - bread and butter..

Source: GI.biz

No Hot Coffee Cash For You!

If you were imagining what you’d do with that Hot Coffee settlement check, you might want to shelf those plans for another day. A federal judge has thrown at a proposed settlement of the Hot Coffee class-action lawsuit out, saying that “purchasers of the game could not be lumped together in a class action.”

Ouch.

This of course has a lot of lawyers pissed off. Lawyers for the class probably won’t get the ridiculous amount of money they petitioned the court for and Take Two’s lawyers are pissed because they spent millions of dollars trying to resolve a lawsuit that should have never made it as far as it did. Lawyers for Take-Two say that this is a prime example why judges need to establish a class earlier in the process.

Oh, and the court refused to rule on its decertification motion last year, which made the action go forward - despite, apparently , not having any merit as a class action.

Source: GamePolitics

Take Two E3 Press Conference Notes

Take Two’s E3 press conference had a few surprises, but was mostly a rundown of titles that were expected or already announced.

First the surprises: The company revealed at the very end of its show that Sid Meier’s Pirates! II and a new Red Dead Revolver game were in the works. No details, just a tease to get people excited. Fans of the Wild West shoot ‘em up and Sid Meier’s popular action adventure game were certainly happy to hear the news.

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Hot Coffee Fails to Make A Splash

It seems that Hot Coffee is finally running out of steam. Of the millions of people who bought the GTA: San Andreas with the Hot Coffee “hidden sex scenes” included in their copy, exactly 2,676 were tipped off by their lawyer friends offended enough to file a class action lawsuit.

The relatively anticlimactic resolution of the claims sees Take-Two being ordered to pay less than $30,000 ($5 to $35 per claim). The irony in all of this is that the lawyers who brought the class action on behalf of the plaintiffs are asking for more than $1.3 million.

“It doesn’t typically go that way,” said Mary J. Davis, a law professor at the University of Kentucky who has studied this type of litigation.  “To have legal fees dwarf a settlement payout is sort of backwards.”