Rockstar's downloadable Grand Theft Auto IV expansion The Lost and Damned will break the 2 million download mark this year, according to Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Patcher's estimates. "Take-Two released the first installment of DLC for GTA in mid-February, and we estimate that the game has been downloaded over 1 million times to date," said Patcher of the $20 expansion. "By year-end, we think that this figure will likely double, giving us greater confidence that Take-Two can achieve its full-year earnings guidance."

Patcher also expects the next full release of Grand Theft Auto series to outsell GTA 4 by up to 50 percent due to larger hardware install base. Grand Theft Auto IV boasted sales of $500 million just one week after hitting stores last year.

The release of Rockstar's biker-themed Grand Theft Auto IV expansion The Lost & Damned set a one-day Xbox Live revenue record, according to Microsoft.

No sales figures were released for the $20 downloadable expansion, which went live last week on February 17.

The first DLC pack for Grand Theft Auto IV, The Lost and Damned, is going live tomorrow morning at 2:00am PST. The game promises a solid chunk of gameplay, new multiplayer modes, and full-frontal male nudity.

To get you warmed up for the experience, here are a few minutes of humorous, well-edited GTA 4 clips, all produced by Shacker Crustar and friends using the PC port's video editor. Check out their YouTube page for more.

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As Rockstar prepares to release the first Xbox 360-only downloadable expansion for Grand Theft Auto IV, more information has surfaced on the new multiplayer modes.

UGO offers the following details on the modes that are exclusive to the expansion, which are accompanied by the expected Free Mode and Deathmatch play styles.

Requiring a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV to play, The Lost and Damned expansion hits the Xbox Live Marketplace tomorrow, February 17, at the asking price of $20.

Witness Protection

One team is cops, the other team is bikers. One of the cops is in a bus and must drive to random spots in the city to drop off government witnesses, while the other cops drive... Read more

Accompanying yesterday's trailer, here are a few new screenshots from The Lost and Damned, the first of Rockstar's two Xbox 360-only Grand Theft Auto IV expansions.

Requiring a physical copy of Grand Theft Auto IV to play, The Lost and Damned will hit as a $20 Xbox Live Marketplace download next Tuesday, February 17. During its first six days of availability, Xbox 360 owners will be able to engage in online multiplayer for both Grand Theft Auto IV and The Lost and Damned without needing to pay for Xbox Live.

Rockstar today released a new trailer for the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV DLC pack, The Lost and Damned. The video gives us the first glimpse of Niko, GTA IV's star, as he meets with The Lost and Damned's Johnny for the second time.

The Lost and Damned DLC hits Xbox 360 on February 17, next Tuesday, for the price of 1600 Microsoft Points ($20).

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To commemorate the first downloadable expansion for Grand Theft Auto IV, Microsoft has announced that all Xbox Live members will be able to partake in Grand Theft Auto IV online multiplayer from 9 AM PST on February 17 to 11:59 PM PST on February 22.

Traditionally, Xbox Live multiplayer access is barred to those with free Silver accounts, restricted only to those that have paid for or redeemed a Gold-level membership.

Microsoft stressed that the promotion only applies to those playing Grand Theft Auto IV or the downlodable Lost and Damned expansion, which requires the GTA IV disc to play.

One of two promised Xbox 360-exclusive downloadable episodes for Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto IV, The Lost and Damned hits on February 17, priced at $20.

Rockstar's put out another trailer for the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV DLC, The Lost and Damned. This one's about Johnny. He's a reactionary prick.

The Lost and Damned DLC hits Xbox 360 on February 17 for the price of 1600 Microsoft Points ($20).

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A wealth of new screenshots from The Lost and Damned, Rockstar's $20 expansion for Grand Theft Auto IV, have surfaced, showing off more of the forthcoming biker antics.

Explosions? Check. Gunplay? Uh-huh. Sitting on a hog, drinking a beer at sunrise, and admiring the Liberty City skyline whilst reminiscing of better times? You know it.

The first of the two Xbox 360-exclusive downloadable episodes for Grand Theft Auto IV, The Lost and Damned hits the Xbox Live Marketplace on February 17.

While noting that the gaming industry is still in its infantile stage, Rockstar founder Dan Houser says he'll gladly deal with the growing pains in order to explore a new art form.

"I think the medium is still very young," said Houser to Telegraph. "It's not a baby, but it's still probably an infant. So everything is growing and evolving as we go along and we're still figuring out how to do stuff.

"Movies and TV and books have become so structured in the way they have to approach things. Not working in that environment gives us enormous freedom. I'd rather keep the freedom and not have the respect."

Houser co-founded Rockstar in 1998, going on to fame and fortune by way of the lucrative Grand Theft Auto series. The two recently signed a deal to remain with Rockstar through January 2012.

"There was a sense that in some way movies were a higher... Read more

Rockstar Games sends along a new patch for Grand Theft Auto 4, updating the PC release to version 1.2.

The 33MB update offers additional graphics customization options including "Water Quality", "Shadow Quality", and "Reflection Resolution", while also fixing more crash issues.

There's also the following for gamepad users: 'Direct input device support is now disabled by default and can only be enabled with the commandline: "-usedirectinput" '.

Full patch notes follow ... Read more

Rockstar has released a pair of new trailers featuring two characters from the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 4 DLC The Lost and Damned (X360).

First up is a look at Billy, the bearded character we've seen in numerous screenshots at this point.

Once again, The Lost and Damned will arrive February 17, for the price of 1600 Microsoft Points ($20).

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Click through to meet Malc. He's a big dog. ... Read more

Rockstar's released plenty of new screenshots for the upcoming biker-themed Grand Theft Auto IV DLC pack, The Lost and Damned.

The Xbox 360-exclusive DLC pack will hit Xbox Live Marketplace on February 17, for the price of 1600 Microsoft Points ($20).

Rockstar has confirmed that the first Xbox 360-exclusive DLC pack for Grand Theft Auto IV will run 1600 Microsoft Points ($20) on Xbox Live Marketplace. That price had previously been rumored by way of GameStop, which sold pre-orders for DLC voucher codes.

The downloadable expansion, said to include around 10 hours of biker-themed gameplay, is expected to be released on February 17.

There is "no truth" to the recent reports that a full Grand Theft Auto sequel could be released by late 2009, series developer and publisher Rockstar told Kotaku.

The rumor first popped up in gaming magazine Game Informer, which claimed that the alleged sequel would be a full retail game--not just a collection of DLC--and could sport a subtitle, such as Grand Theft Auto: Tokyo, instead of jumping to Grand Theft Auto 5.

However, 2009 will not be devoid of new Grand Theft Auto. The franchises' first Ninteno DS release, Chinatown Wars, arrives on March 17, while the first of two Xbox 360-exclusive downloadable episodes for Grand Theft Auto 4 hits February 17.

File this one under "unlikely," but Game Informer is apparently reporting in its latest issue that a full Grand Theft Auto sequel could be released by late 2009.

"We're not talking about new DLC or a collection of previously available DLC, we're talking about a full retail game," wrote Game Informer in its "Loose Talk" column, according to PSU.

"We expect this title to follow the suit of previous GTAs and use a subtitle such as GTA: San Andreas, etc. Tokyo might be a possible setting for the game, but details are non-existent at this time."

While the speed of the release would not be unprecedented--Vice City was released roughly one year after Grand Theft Auto III--Rockstar is already planning to release two significant DLC expansions for Grand Theft Auto IV on the Xbox 360 this year, which could be overshadowed by a full sequel.

Publisher Take-Two has announced a new long-term deal with key members of Rockstar Games, ensuring that the talent behind the Grand Theft Auto IV developer won't be going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

The deal will see Rockstar founders Sam and Dan Houser and other important members of the Rockstar team staying on to develop games for Take-Two through January 31, 2012.

"We are excited to continue our partnership with the new management team at Take-Two, who have helped us to protect the unique atmosphere that fosters creativity and innovation," said Sam Houser.

The deal provides new incentives and profit sharing for Rockstar, as well as new opportunities for the Housers to form a spin-off company to develop new intellectual property that will be owned by Rockstar. Take-Two will have exclusive rights to publish the result of that project.

Publisher Rockstar has released more media of Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned, the first of the two Xbox 360-exclusive downloadable episodes for GTA4.

Requiring a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV to play, The Lost and Damned will arrive on February 17, with retailer GameStop indicating that it will run 1600 MS Points ($20).

And before you ask, the song in the trailer is "Dead Embryonic Cells" by Sepultura.

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Further addressing the problems that surfaced after Grand Theft Auto IV hit PC last week, developer and publisher Rockstar has completed work on the first patch.

"We are working on making a patch available in the next few days," the studio posted on fansite GTAForums. "Since Grand Theft Auto IV is a Games For Windows - Live game the patch must be certified by Microsoft before release. The patch is already at Microsoft and we expect a speedy approval."

Support calls have indicated that "roughly around one percent" are having issues with the game, technical director Kevin Hoare IGN, stressing that the frequency of support calls is "the only thing we have to go on as far as numbers go."

"It seems like maybe these forum posters are the more outspoken percentage of the players," he noted.

"Going through certification with Microsoft and our external QA process, we didn't run into the amount of problems that the boards seemed to be saying there are," development VP Jeronimo Barrera added.

"We're seeing some of the things that people are complaining about but they're so peripheral of the target audience," Barrera continued. "We do recognize that people are having problems with this but it's not the disaster that people have it hyped up to be."

Along with the below list of changes, Rockstar and Nvidia have worked together to create specialized GTA4-friendly drivers, with new ATI drivers due December 10.

The patch contains a variety of fixes including:

• A fix to the crash after legal screen that some German customers were reporting.
• Numerous improvements to the video editor: Smarter naming of videos, improved rendering quality, better fx during replays... Read more

Following reports of game-breaking problems with the recently-released PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV, publisher Rockstar has issued a statement, acknowledging that it is "aware that a small number of fans are having problems running GTA IV."

"We would like to assure them we are working to help solve these as quickly as possible," the studio told Voodoo Extreme. Rockstar suggests having issues contact local technical support--the number is in the game's manual--as well as check out the Rockstar Games Support website, which is "regularly updated."

Included on the website is this suggested fix for the missing textures issue, which Rockstar says "may be associated with third party graphical performance tuners," along with a list of some error codes and fixes, reproduced below.

It seems the company has yet to directly address complaints... Read more