Some Calculations...

[adam_fozz]

I know we have talked about the correlation between the release of previous games and GTA V before...but I want to revisit to see if we cant gleam anything.

 

The issue we have is that we don't really know when they start to make the games. Sometimes its clear that production began straight after the release of the previous games...This is most likely what happens when a new era game is being produced. But at other times its more difficult to accurate estimate the production start date.

 

Another area where estimation is difficult is the length of production time for a new era game. sometimes we can see some relationships in production time-scales for like for like games, but when a next gen game is made this is difficult.

 

So Here are the release sates of the Major titles

 

Title Release Date Production Time

Grand Theft Auto Oct-97

GTA London 1969 (episode) Apr-99 18 Months

GTA London 1961 (episode) Jun-99 2 Months

GTA 2 Sep-99 3 Months

Grand Theft Auto III Oct-01 25 Months

Grand Theft Auto Vice City Oct-02 12 Months

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas Oct-04 24 Months

Grand Theft Auto IV Apr-08 42 Months

Grand Theft Auto V (un-announced) so Far:- 43 Months

 

So, we cans see that from GTA 2 to GTA 3 it took 25 months. But from GTA SA to IV it took 42 months. That is a 75% increase in production times. If we were to extrapolate this on to the time from the release of GTA IV we get to 73.5 months (Which takes us to May 2014). However, looking at the difference between games developed for the same consoles (which we can assume GTA V will be) may yield significantly different results. Unfortunately we haven't been in this situation before. We are in the rare situation where a completely new GTA game is in production but without changing to a next gen console. How will this reduce the production time? Its difficult to say.

 

We could consider the difference between GTA III and San Andreas, but this isn't exactly a fair test because SA uses the same software as III.

 

What about the delay in release of IV? We know that the game was pretty much complete and that the delay was due to accounting issues. If we take out the 6 month delay this makes the production time for IV 36 months. This is a 50% increase in production times and thus reduces our estimated date for V from 73.5 months to 63 months. This takes us to July 2013. Take into account the increases in staff and budget at Rockstar since GTA III and I think this could remove enough time to take us to Rockstar's favourite release month of October. That would be October 2012.

 

Before I get criticized I know that none of the above is an exact science! but I think there are some good points with regards to Rockstars average production times for GTA. Don't get me wrong. I would love to see an early 2012 release but I just cant see it considering the calculations above and Rockstars release schedule for other games.

 

 

Adam_Fozz

[Andrew]

We already have release date topics to discuss these, please use them.

 

http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=485100