14 DAY TRIAL // We reported last week that GTA IV seemed to be suffering from some annoying issues, especially freezes in the opening cinematic, both on Xbox 360 machines and on PlayStation 3 consoles. Then, we broke the news that the technical support people at Rockstar had issued a rather long and complicated 12-step list that was supposed to eliminate problems on the PS3. And then we talked about the planned patch for the Sony gaming console which was confirmed by Rockstar.
Meanwhile, the notorious Take Two chairman Strauss Zelnick was doing the television tour talking about the game and about the phenomenal sales numbers that it recorded in its first few days of selling. All's good and well in his world, and no mention of any issues regarding the game.
Talking to CNBC, the chairman event found the time to joke when he was asked about the technical difficulties. He said that there is "none whatsoever" and that "I'd say the only issue is that someone came up to me yesterday in a restaurant and said 'my thumbs are hurting from the weekend'." Which is a load of bull, taking into account the fact that GTA IV is not that hard on your thumbs.
And then Rockstar goes out and talks about a patch that, in its terms, "prevents Gamespy's servers from being overloaded and therefore reduces the impact on those servers that were causing the game to stutter and lock up".
Rockstar also stated that "We continue to monitor the performance of the game both on and offline and will provide further updates as necessary. We want to assure everyone that, together with our hardware partners, we continue to strive to give our fans the best possible interactive entertainment experiences possible".
I don't mean to sound too rude, but mister Zelnick is showing a lot of disrespect to the end user of his company's product through such media statements, just as the developer of the game is working hard to take out a clearly existing issue.