Michael Pachter, an industry analyst from Wedbush Morgan Securities, believes the game was delayed because Rockstar was "struggling with development on the PlayStation 3" according to Gameindustry.biz. Patcher believes that as a result, the Xbox 360 version has been delayed as well, apparently because contractual obligations prevented Rockstar from releasing the game first on the Xbox.
"We think it is likely that the Rockstar team had difficulty in building an exceptionally complicated game for the PS3, and failed to recognise how far away from completion the game truly was until recently," said Pachter. "We think it is also likely that Take-Two had a contractual commitment to Sony that it would not favour competitor Microsoft by launching the Xbox 360 version of GTA IV prior to launching the PS3 version, and believe that any delay of the PS3 version necessitated a delay of the Xbox 360 version," he continued.
"Take-Two management stumbled badly for the first time during their tenure. While the delay of GTA IV was clearly not the fault of new management, we believe that it should have been better understood several months ago, and should have been communicated to investors much earlier than today. The company has begun an initiative to improve the green light process for new projects, but given the delays of Manhunt and GTA, its process for monitoring projects under development appears to be a failure," he finished.
It's worth noting that while Pachter is one of the leading industry analysts, his comments shouldn't be taken as gospel. Rockstar are unlikely to ever highlight exactly what held Grand Theft Auto IV back, so analyst speculation may be all we have for now.
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