'Grand Theft Auto Success' Taxes IGN's Google-Powered Map - InformationWeek

Videogame service supplier IGN Entertainment on Friday was feeling the strain from trying to maintain up with the runaway success of "Grand Larceny Car IV."

IGN have created a Google-powered online map of Autonomy City, the fictional GTA 'hood that closely resembles New York. GTA participants are able to put markers on the map for points of interest, restaurants, nightclubs, and just about anything else they happen in their travelings in GTA's practical world.

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On Friday, IGN's GTA Web land site was working difficult to maintain up with the figure of players. "Due to the sheer amount of entries from all you pimps, the reappraisal procedure is taking longer than expected," "Please make not submit the same marker twice out of fearfulness your entry didn't travel through."

While IGN looks to be handling the spike, the posting reflects the unprecedented success of GTA IV, which according to game-maker Take-Two Synergistic Software for first-day and first-week sales. As of Wednesday, Take-Two sold 6 million transcripts of the game worldwide, taking in more than than a half-billion dollars in the first hebdomad since the game's April 29th release. More than one-half of the units of measurement -- 3.6 million -- were sold on the first day.

The NPD Group, an authorization in U.S. retail sales, have yet to set out its gross gross sales Numbers for GTA IV. The marketplace research house programs to releases its April figs for the videogame marketplace next week.

In the meantime, others are hoping to catch a drive on the GTA pickup car. Microsoft that retail merchants reported that more than than 60% of all GTA games sold in the first hebdomad were for the software system maker's Xbox 360 videogame console. This would take one to believe that the remaining 40% were for Sony's PlayStation, but the consumer electronics company was silent on GTA's impact.

Microsoft, however, said its ain gross gross sales information from last hebdomad shows that Xbox 360 sales at retail merchants went up 54% week-over-week arsenic a consequence of GTA's success. In addition, about 40% of the people buying new Xboxes also bought a transcript of GTA IV.

While gamers can't wait to prowl GTA's gang-infested 'hood, critics are less enthusiastic about the game's focusing on force and crime. The Windy City Theodolite Authority nixed a $300,000 advertisement political campaign for the game after a local Fox News station questioned whether the federal agency was sending the right message at a clip when the metropolis was struggling to cut down existent crime.