Reports of 'GTA IV' freezing-up problems

Uh-oh.

For all the champagne toasts that are no doubt going on over at Take-Two Interactive and its subsidiary Rockstar Games over the grand launch day of Grand Theft Auto IV, there's a bit of a dark cloud brewing.

According to a post on CNET News.com sister site GameSpot, there's a brouhaha afoot in GTA IV forums all over the Internet because of some players' complaints that the game is freezing up on them.

As GameSpot's Brendan Sinclair points out, it was only a month ago that another one of Rockstar's games, Bully had freezing-up problems. Now, with reports of crashes with GTA IV, mostly on the PlayStation 3, but also on the Xbox 360, one has to wonder if perhaps there's someone in Rockstar's QA department that's not doing their job.

Other recent hit games, of course, have also had quality problems. You might recall that some players of Guitar Hero III had problems with their guitar controllers.

So one thing that will certainly help Take-Two and Rockstar get through this relatively unscathed--assuming the reports of GTA IV freezing up are real--is if they react quickly and solve the problem and reach out to their users. If they don't, it won't look good.

[Electro_Fox]

Freeze Up?

Nah, don't worry about it... Probably just some uptight soccer moms getting their panties in a bunch and starting some rumors to put a dent in sales. But, I know when I was a kid, anything that "Moms" were against were the things that I strived to attain, do, eat, hang around with, etc... Anyhow, I think Rockstar is going to knock this baby out of the park!

[chew420]

are you kidding me?

I am by far not a mom. I am a 27yr old male living in NYC. The game also freezes on me every 10 min. If you are really that ******* dumb then you may want to google "GTA 4 freeze" and see if all of us are lying. Before you go running your mouth you may want to get your facts in line.

[crauzz]

freezing-up problems

I wish you would have included NBA Live '08 in this article. There are tons of threads out there about it freezing on every game system I believe. It freezes on my PSP in simulation mode after the entire game has been played, but before you are able to save. You will find plenty of threads on EA's website. As far as I know they will not do anything to rectify the problem, but it would be nice if they would at least receive some public pressure.

[RicABlair]

GTA IV OK

I've had no problems yet with GTA IV.

[Tetherdown UK]

40GB PS3 is also freezing

Hi,

For the record, this is a real issue. I got about three hours of the game in last night and then the freezing started to happen every five minutes or so, enough to make me give up and stop playing. No fun.

Ta,

T

[kmccrack]

GTA IV Freezing Confirmed

GTA IV on XBox 360 locked up a couple times. Had to restart and then switch to a different mission.

[johnsin]

Totally Freezes

I bought mine yesterday.. and on the first boot up the game froze up and had polygon distortions during the intro! It took about 4-5 restarts and sitting through the game intro before finally it got through without any problems.. Once I got it running.. haven't bothered turn it off yet. hhhaha :P

[mouserider]

No problems...yet

My copy of the game was up and running for 11hrs straight with about 6+ hours of that
interactively playing.

No problems at all, no freezing or pixelations. [knock on wood]

One thing I have noticed is that the early problem postings I've read on the various forums is
the unfortunate lack of details for Rockstar to work with. Almost none of the early posters
had details like "it freezes during the Uncle Vlad mission".

With the big hype and the big sales, Rockstar can still come out of this as a star if they
handle the issues quickly.

I will say that for the entire period I was playing, I wasn't logged in to the PSN, I never tried
the multiplayer part of the game or looked at the network statistics.

For the record, PS3/60GB, v2.30 firmware.

[inachu]

See I told you so.

Would not happen if the PC version was released at the same time but nooooooo.

[chew420]

really?

so what does the PC release date have anything to do with freezing on PS3 and XBOX...? THe two are just not even close to each other... go find some PC fourm and cry about it over there, this is for people for have PS3's and XBOX... did you read the title?

[chew420]

Thank you for running this story

I want to thank you from all GTA 4 "Freezers" for running this story. I understand that mistakes happen, but Rockstar has not even released a statement yet... they are heading down the wrong path in my eyes. Just tell everyone that the problem has been identified and we are doing all that we can to solve the problem. Yahoo also ran an article so thank you to all of the ppl that stand up for the little people, "that make the big ppl who they are".

PSN = Chew420

[brandonh33]

My ps3 has been fine

I am not saying that nobody is having problems, but my system (60gb ps3) has been running smoothly with no errors (knock on wood). I have played it for several hours and have not run into any issues.

[smokified]

New norm

In todays gaming age, games are far more technical and advanced and therefore would require unbelievable amounts of testing, and even on that scale it is harder to find all of the bugs as it would be with 9 million people playing the game.

With todays technology, patching has become normal and I would be willing to bet that these issues get taken care of promptly through some kind of patch.

Also, I have a PS3 and have not had any issues at all and I am about 40% through the story and have spent a lot of time doing other random things and I have seen nothing but normal smooth operation.

[GMAN5050]

GTA freezing up on me too!!

I was playing for ten minutes and then it froze with lines through the screen and then the game would barely make it through the credits and the same thing happened, then it just froz sooner and sooner with each reboot.

[cmm26redmc]

GTA 4 has MAJOR PS3 online issues

Grand Theft Auto 4 multiplayer is currently plagued with issues.
Long wait times, small matches, players quitting, and losing
money are just a few of the problems online gamers are
currently dealing with. Periodic system and game freezes just
compound the problems and make otherwise awesome game
play, inherently flawed.

http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?
board.id=gta&thread.id=406981

[jpowell79]

I have a work-around for PS3/GTA IV freezing!!

After spending 45 minutes on hold (thank god for speaker phone!) I got through to someone. Apparently GTA IV is having some serious issues with running while PS3 is hooked up to internet. This workaround might work with xbox, but I don't have one to test it :)

So, currently, if you want to play your game without freezing up, it is as simple as unplugging the network cable or shutting off wireless connection. Since I unplugged my PS3 from network, GTA IV works great! HTH~

PS-I figure I'll be the nice guy (or gal!! :P ) and post the fix in places where people can get the message without spending 45 minutes on hold (and that is after being told they had too many calls and to call back later multiple times!!) It doesn't seem like anyone else who has this info is nice enough to share it! To those people...c'mon! this world would be a much better place without so much apathy.

[themac701]

Yup

This is definitely the problem. Disable the internet connection and GTA works fine. It didn't take me long to realize this since the SAME THING happens with MLB 08 the show when the online servers are down. The game just locks up on the load screen. I havent played on-line yet... I'll wait for Rockstar/PS3 to fix their issues.