GTA 5 PS4 And Xbox One Arriving By Early 2015?

Rockstar Games has a new game for new-generation consoles coming out within the next year. There's only one good guess at what this project could be: the PS4 and Xbox One version of Grand Theft Auto 5.

Take-Two Interactive, parent company of Rockstar, said during their earnings call yesterday that the studio is working on a game for the latest generation of consoles. It's expected to be released by March 31st, 2015, the end of Take-Two's current fiscal year.

One theory being tossed around is that the game is Agent. Agent is a stealth-action game originally announced as a PS3 exclusive in 2009. The game was described by Rockstar as "a paranoid journey into the world of counter-intelligence, espionage and political assassinations during the height of the Cold War at the end of the 1970s."

However, years passed without any sign of Agent. Not a single second of gameplay footage was released. The last we heard of the game was in 2012, when Take-Two confirmed it was still in development.

It's pleasing to think that Rockstar's shifted the game's development to PS4 and will re-announce it at E3 for a fall release. That doesn't seem consistent with Rockstar's usual strategy, though. They tend to reveal games at least a year before their launch. In the case of GTA 5, they announced the game two years prior to release.

Other fans are guessing that this next Rockstar game is either Red Dead Redemption 2 or Bully 2. Again, this just seems too abrupt for Rockstar. They like showing off their games well in advance of release so they can market the hell out of them. Take-Two, which relies on Rockstar to produce hits that sell millions and millions of copies, isn't going to rush them.

It seems much more likely that this mystery project is the PS4 and Xbox One release of GTA 5. Before the game debuted on Xbox 360 and PS3, Rockstar VP Dan Houser said that they would consider other platforms for the game. Furthermore, there have been subtle clues that Rockstar is making ports.

GTA 5 Xbox One and PS4 versions seem like a smart business move. The game shattered sales records last fall, racking up $1 billion in revenue in three days. Take-Two announced yesterday that they've shipped over 33 million copies to date. Releasing the game with updated visuals on the new consoles could give that impressive sales total another spike.

I can see why players would rather have Red Dead Redemption 2 than ports of GTA 5, especially if they've already played GTA 5. I have trouble believing that Rockstar and Take-Two would pass up the easy money that PS4 and XB1 versions of GTA 5 could bring, though.