John-ShepardIt's never too early to speculate about the next Grand Theft Auto . That's a rule. Same goes for Final Fantasy , by the way.
Grand Theft Auto IV launched about two and a half years ago and after Rockstar delivered the stellar Western-oriented GTA, Red Dead Redemption , this past May, we're all wondering: when might GTAV arrive? Well, Take-Two recently announced they were shifting the end of their fiscal year to March 31 (like most other major game publishers), and Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey has predicted the near future for the successful company. Firstly, he says their 2011 fiscal year (April 1, 2011 – March 31, 2012) will feature L.A. Noire (which now seems very probable) and Max Payne 3 , and even Duke Nukem Forever . But GTAV isn't in the mix. Hickey says it's "likely" that the next GTA installment will show up in Take-Two's 2012 fiscal year and when it does drop, it'll be huge: $750 million and over 16 million copies sold.
The higher sales expectations are partly due to the increased PS3/360 installed base in the US, which he believes will hit 41 million units before the end of 2010. This will be in stark contrast to the 14 million consoles that were out there when GTAIV released in April 2008.