14 DAY TRIAL // A few months after release, GTA IV seems to be creeping back into public attention. Not so long ago, Take Two announced that it would be porting the game to the PC and we recently saw some screens of the PC version of the game, which look downright amazing. And now Microsoft is trying to reassure Xbox 360 gamers that the much promised DLC is really arriving during the fall of 2008.
Microsoft has sent a press release from the Leipzig Games Convention saying that "In autumn there will be news from Liberty City; the first episodes of GTA IV will be available for download exclusively on Xbox LIVE, underlining Xbox 360's leadership role in the field of digital entertainment". This is not much considering that information regarding the new content was supposed to be released as soon as the game came out and there is still no concrete information on it. The most persistent rumor is that Rockstar will add a new city to the game, with scripted missions and with some new characters, even if the saga of Niko will not continue.
The rumor mill regularly hints to the idea that in order to maintain the exclusivity of the upcoming downloadable content for Grand Theft Auto IV, Microsoft paid more than 50 million dollars to Rockstar, which, if you ask me, is pretty big money, especially considering the fact that the exclusivity did not really help the Xbox 360 version of the game to sell much more than the PlayStation 3 one.
It might be that Microsoft hopes that the new DLC, when it arrives, will attract other players to the franchise and will lead to a spike in the sales of GTA IV. The game sold well on release, but bigger sales never hurt and Microsoft would really like to see Xbox 360's rise as the DLC is released.