Microsoft had to pay $50 million for it; many people bought the Xbox 360 version especially because of that, yet Take Two has decided to delay the whole thing - from fiscal Q4 2008 to fiscal Q1 2009. Yes, we're talking about the exclusive DLC for the Xbox 360 version of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV. The good news is that the key word here is delayed, not canceled. The bad news is the reason: the decision was made due to portfolio balancing, rather than development issues, which sort of means "we just want to release it later".

Of course, this is an understandable decision, having in mind that during the latest financial results reported by Take Two, 78 percent of the company's total revenue this quarter came from GTA IV and the other Grand Theft Auto games. However, delaying something just for the sake of doing it - and even admitting it openly - might not be the best action to please fans. They could've lied and everything would've been acceptable. (Still, we do appreciate their honesty.)

The announcement of the GTA IV DLC was reported by website gamesindustry.biz, which also stated that no pricing information had been given for the content, nor confirmation or denial for a handheld version or a release date for the PC version. We would dare to believe that the PC version would hit the stores at the same time as the Xbox 360 DLC - and this means that we should expect a delay for the rumored PC version, too.

Back to the announcement: it means that Xbox 360 owners of a Grand Theft Auto IV copy will get a chance to try the new things brought to them by DLC sometime between November 2008 and January 2009 and not "autumn 2008". We will keep a close eye on Microsoft now and see whether it will have any reaction to the announcement. We're sure it will piss off quite a few people in the games world.