In anticipation of the new teaser trailer slated to release today, Rockstar Games has issued four new screenshots of Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, X360).

Rockstar North's highly anticipated gangster life simulator is slated to arrive in early 2008.

Rockstar Games has revealed the box art for Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, X360) on the game's official site.

The company also announced that the third teaser trailer--entitled "Move up, ladies"--will be released on Thursday, December 6 at 3p.m. EST. The past two trailers can be found over at FileShack.

Originally slated to release on October 16, the Rockstar North-developed Grand Theft Auto IV was delayed until early 2008 following reports that the game was experiencing technical difficulties. As publisher Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick put it, the company wanted to "make sure that Grand Theft Auto IV is a groundbreaking gaming experience that takes maximum advantage of next generation technology."

Word out of the gaming grapevine is that Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, X360) will feature a full-fledged 16-player online mode when it arrives in early 2008.

GamingExcellence claims to have spoken with a Rockstar representative at a recent PlayStation Holiday Preview Event. This rep apparently dropped hints regarding the multiplayer mode, which is said to feature more than just deathmatch, and also indicated the whole of the game world may be open from the title's start.

While Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PC, PS2, Xbox) featured a few two player cooperative missions and both Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories on PSP showcased six player brawls, Rockstar has yet to integrate online play into any of the 3D Grand Theft Auto titles. However, the homebrew community has enabled online multiplayer into the three latest PC Grand Theft Auto offerings via mods.

Shacknews contacted the ever-elusive Rockstar for confirmation and was told that the company does not comment on rumors or speculation.

Rockstar North's highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, X360) has been delayed into 2008, publisher Take-Two revealed in a financial update. The company cited the necessity of additional development time as the cause of the postponement.

Previously planned for release on October 16, 2007, Grand Theft Auto IV will now arrive in the second quarter of the company's 2008 fiscal year, which spans from February to April. Numerous outlets, Shacknews included, reported that the game ran at a sluggish framerate after witnessing a live demonstration. For more on Grand Theft Auto IV, check out our E3 impressions.

"Certain elements of development proved to be more time-intensive than expected, especially given the commitment for a simultaneous ... Read more

More Grand Theft Auto IV previews can be found at GameSpy, 1UP and Computer & Video Games (part 1, part 2).

Team Xbox, IGN and GameSpot have been updated with new Grand Theft Auto IV previews. Take Two recently demonstrated the game for some 45 minutes.

As had been expected, a new trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV has been released. The movie runs for about a minute, showing cinematic in-game footage.

Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto IV will be released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this October.

Yahoo Video Games has a brief Grand Theft Auto IV Q&A, asking Rockstar's Dan Houser a few questions about the game.

Featured prominently in Grand Theft Auto IV publisher Take-Two's Q2 financial report was the upcoming exclusive content for the Xbox 360 version of the Rockstar-developed game. Now a corporate conference call with Take-Two higher-ups and financial analysts has revealed that a $50 million chunk of deferred revenue originated from Microsoft, apparently in payment for the exclusive content.

In speaking to the cash infusion, Take-Two chief of finance Lainie Goldstein also confirmed the release date of the first of two downloadable expansions. "The first 25 [million] is for the first episodic content package that's supposed to go out, and that is in March of '08," she said, according to SeekingAlpha. "The second 25 will be for the second episode, and... Read more

While the few scant details contained within Rockstar's recent Grand Theft Auto IV trailer certainly gave the hype bandwagon a firm push, they also brought out another quality the franchise is known for: controversy. The trailer, which did little more than showcase several in-game environments, has already drawn complaints from New York City officials protesting the game's NYC-inspired setting and the series' penchant for violence. Technically, Grand Theft Auto IV takes places in the fictional Liberty City, but scenes from last week's trailer displayed virtual recreations of several distinctive New York landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge.

"Setting Grand Theft Auto in the safest big city in America would be like setting Halo in Disneyland," NYC councilman and public safety committee chairman Peter Vallone told the NY Daily News. "It's despicable to glamorize violence in games like these, regardless of how far-fetched the setting may be," noted police commissioner Raymond Kelly. A statement from mayor Michael Bloomberg issued by spokesman Jason Post also focused on concerns regarding violence. "The mayor does not support any video game where you earn points for injuring or killing police officers," he relayed.

This is not the the first time the setting of a Grand Theft Auto game has been based off a real-life location. A previous version of Liberty City, seen in Grand Theft Auto III (PS2, Xbox, PC) and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PS2, PSP) also took inspiration from New York City. Vice City, the featured location in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2, Xbox, PC) and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (PS2, PSP), contained elements of Miami, Florida. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2, Xbox, PC) used fictional renditions of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas, referred to in-game as Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Ventures. An expansion pack for the original Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation and PC put players in London, England circa 1969.

New York City officials join an ever-growing list of both domestic and foreign government officials concerned with the implications of an improper or inaccurate virtual depiction. Officials from Las Vegas, Nevada complained that the terrorist attacks carried out against the city in Ubisoft Montreal's Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas painted the city as unsafe. Members of Venezuela's government have vocally protested Pandemic's setting of the upcoming Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (PS2, PS3, X360, PC) in Venzeuela, fearing it "gives a false vision" and acts as "a justification for an imperialist aggression." Most recently, the mayor of Juarez, Mexico, Hector Murguia Lardizabal, accused the Juarez-based events within Ubisoft Paris and Red Storm Studios' Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 (X360) of insulting the intellect of his city's residents and increasing tension between the U.S. and Mexico, after which officials in Chihuahua, Mexico began confiscating copies of the game.

Grand Theft Auto IV is due out on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 later this year.

So we got the new Grand Theft Auto IV trailer on FileShack that has just been released for you all, offering the first footage from the Xbox 360 / PS3 action adventure game sequel. The GTA4 trailer is in 720p HD so you get a pretty good look at the environment, there's no gameplay footage in this one though. Grand Theft Auto IV is due out in October.