Noone I know has had an issue. I played on a 40gig, and my own 60gig, with no glitches at all.

Oh hey, ANTOHER GTA 4 story! *yawn*

Rockstar can't by the type of publicity...or maybe they can? (did?)

I personally haven't had any issues but for those who has, i hope a resolution comes quick to the manner.

I thought R* said it was fixed already and that all you have to do is delete the game data and reinstall.

@Capt. Struggle Bunny: Yes Rockstar paid us to write about bugs in GTA IV.

@Capt. Struggle Bunny: Bookmark this:
[kotaku.com]

I was actually debating whether to get the game for xbox or my 60GB PS3. Glad I went with the xbox, since it seems the largest group of affected users are in the PS3 camp.

I actually had a freezing issue but it froze on me twice in one mission not the first cut scene. But I kept trying and the third time it went through and I finished it. Now I'm way past there with no issues at all. 60gig.

I locked up on my launch PS3.

Based on random comments I read online, I erased a 1 gig demo off of my hard drive, erased the GTA4 game data (not save data - game data) then had it reinstall.

Played it for several hours after that with no problems. Its probably a coincidence, but if you're having problems, it wouldn't hurt to try.

Nobody else I know has had any issues.

I had the issue ... it would freeze 1-2 seconds, then resume. During cutscenes, gameplay, whenever. Then it just crashed on me during the saving process.

I changed my copy and tried it again; same problem for the first 10 seconds, but then it ran smoothly for hours. No problem since ... I'm running an 80 GB PS3.

These problems are very real, as the EB Games I bought it at had had 5 returns like this .. Not a big number, but that's only ONE store !

I am having the problem on my 20gig

What did you expect from multiplatform games.

Also I agree with Cpt. Struggle Bunny. Yawn GTA4, what a over rated game. I miss the old days of GTA when it was about stealing cars and not turning into a Scarface fake.

Not experiencing any issues.

Good luck to the small number of peeps that have the issue.

@Capt. Struggle Bunny: Right, but I don't think Kotaku needs any more money after Microsoft already paid them millions to keep posting stories about RRODs.

???????

I know a bunch of Kotakuites that have this problem. So apparently the only ones that have the freezing issue are...people on Kotaku?

I smell conspiracy! Crecente, they still remember the Karraker Incident!

@Brian Crecente: Brian, you're so hyping GTA by reporting bugs and issues. You MUST be getting paid under the table.

Yes, sarcasm doesn't work quite as well in text. ;)

If these companies stop messing around with multiple SKU's and various components/configurations in there consoles, maybe we (the consumers) wouldn't have as many problems. Cost cutting is fine but don't break the thing while doing it.

Well, it's good hearing *something* from SCEA at least.

Maybe they get their shit together and release a 1GB patch that upps the textures to native 720p or even 1080p. Who knows. Yea I'm dreaming right here.

Anyhow, the game looks sharp/good enough in upscaled 1080p for me, so that's a lower priority.

I wonder if MS will do the same? At least it's being acknowledged by SCEA.Hopefully,Rockstar gets it worked out.

Like I said previously, I don't have any gameplay issues whatsoever, the only problem I've seen was when I try to turn the game off via the PS button. When I do that my system reboots. No biggie, I'm still getting to where I wanted to be.

i had no problems installing it and playing though i did lock up in an infinite load screen after coming off of online last night. after that though, no other problems.

Heh, glad to see I'm not the only one who uses the term borked, but I may be the only one who spells it bjørked.

People would be surprised about the leniency given to last minute crashes in the final stages of testing. I've tested for 3 games and 2 of them shipped with a nearly 100% crash still in game just because of deadline pressures and a general consensus of apathy stemming from stress. You just hope for the best and pray Sony or MSoft testers don't find it during authorization.

@Candlejack: The game looks great, and I'm willing to wager that if you didn't KNOW it was 640p, you wouldn't realize it.

I froze up during a cutscene and immediately panicked (60 GB PS3 -- well kinda -- modified to 250) but it lasted about a second and a half, caught up, and I've had no further troubles.

What's GTA IV?

I know what is causing it in multiplayer and I sent them an email with instruction on how to reproduce it. Hopefully someone reads it.

How big is this "few" number?

I have a 40GB PS3 and have had no issues whatsoever with my copy of GTA.

Why would people be calling into the Sony support lines at all for this? Shouldn't they be calling Rockstar since they, you know, made the game? No surprise they're getting a low volume of calls on the issue...

I've had a few freezes on my 60gig, I waited one out (about 10 minutes) and the game came to its senses. I still had more issues with Assassin's Creed... :\

The freezing issues with Grand Theft Auto IV is AFFECTING a limited number of Playstation 3s.

Just sayin.

I'm on dialup so I can't download any patches if they release patches... I hope they let people download it on their PCs so I can get it elsewhere and transfer it over to my PS3.

I posted this in the original 640p thread, but raw line count is seriously overrated. In a side-by-side comparison, you might notice, but I've done theatre screenings of sub-SD material and not had anyone notice. What you do with the resolution is just as/more important than the raw quantity.

Plus count me among the few, the proud, the "borked". Game freezes entirely (requiring hard reboot) after about 2 minutes (originally played 2 hours with no problems).

@exstrat: Its not more overrated then Brawl is IMO.

As for the lock ups, if I get GTA IV, I'm going to ask if I can bring it back and trade for Mass Effect, though, I do want to get both though.

Kotaku provides a service to its readers. That service is keeping us up to speed on whatever topic they feel is necessary. To throw it in there face is biting the hand that feeds. Funny how no one bitches when they post contest reminders!

@kingclip: Yep, that's true, and that's why most people (before the resolution crisis broke out) said the PS3 version looked smoother and better.

However, upscaled at 1080p, it even improves ;) Give it a shot if you've got a 1080p TV!

My 60gb froze one during one mission. Then I turned it off for 15-20 mins, and started it up. I was able to play through that mission just fine.

Mine messes up too. Randomly freezes, usualy after 9 mins of play. I find all i have to do is eject the game and put it back in right away and the system resets its self and i just have to re-launch the game from the XMB. i got a old 60 gig ps3.

Much sympathy for all those affected by this tragedy. Missing out on GTA IV (Roman numerals 'cause it's epic) due to multiple system configurations would not sit well with me after spending $300-$500 on a system.

One of the advantages consoles have over PC is that developers are able to develop for one platform. Both Sony and Microsoft have introduced multiple versions of their consoles; if a bug like this only occurs on one configuration it is less likely that the test team will find the issue.

* Wow, no grammar nazi comments regarding the use of effect vs. affect. Please don't flame, I tried to contribute to the discussion first. =)

@Candlejack:
Textures have nothing to do with display rate. You could triple the resolution of the texture files, and the game would still be 640p native.

By the same token, you could just reduce all the textures in the game to easily get it to run at 1080p locked... but it would look a lot worse than it does now.

Display resolution is a metric like "loud". Volume is one aspect of picking out a stereo, but the loudest stereo isn't necessarily the best sounding. Display resolution is one aspect of "quality of graphics", but needs to be evaluated as part of a whole.

@Capt. Struggle Bunny: Yes, Rockstar purposely added a minority glitch to selected copies of GTA IV so people would report them online and drive such positive publicity about the game.

I betcha that if Sony had dished out $50 Mil to Rockstar for "limited content", they would be having much less of a problem

Well I've already talked about my so-far not-too-terrible-but-definitely-existent issues in other threads, so I won't go into them again here.

But anyway, +1 on all this.

Got mine launch night. No issues with freezing and online was fine. On launch day online was down, and the freezing for a sec. or 2 started. Then Wednesday, online was fine again and I played for like 6 hours in the campaign and no freeze ups anymore. I do believe that the freezing was occuring because the game is trying to connect to the multiplayer servers in the background so that the Game Modes for multi are ready upon selecting multiplayer from your phone's menu. Because online was down, it would cause slght freeze hiccups during the background connection attempts. I really think this was the issue on the PS3 because since online is working, no freezing anymore. I have a 250GB upgraded launch 60GB. I don't know if any of you that are still having freezing issues are still having online connectin issues as well. I also don't know why the 360 version would be doing it also. This is just my observation. But again. I have not had any freezing issues since online went back up. Cheers.

Sucks, but by the time I'm ready to buy my own copy of GTA IV, the store where I buy it from would actually have it and the problems would be fixed so this wouldn't really affect me... Still following it though

@Brian Crecente: Great, but any word on the connection issue?

I got my first 2 freezes yesterday. They were like 5 minutes apart.

I haven't played too much, but the game froze on me once. While driving, the game froze while I was listening to the radio. The radio was still running, and after about a minute the game unfroze.

I've had a few random crashes in my game...nothing major, just one or two "oops, the game froze up while you were driving around" dealies. It's irritating, but every so often my Wii just refuses to boot up channels ever since it took a tumble off of our TV table, so a random crash every 6-10 hours is alright in my book, especially with auto-save.

@Capt. Struggle Bunny:

Don't be an ass. I'm tired of you guys coming in these articles and bitching. Knock it off.

I have some friends who are dealing with problems, they have the 60GB model.

No problems with lockups here on a 60GB PS3.

@paseana:

What's with the grammar nazi shit? Do you have anything that's actually relevant to add to the conversation?

@thebigsmoke: I don't get it. Wouldn't native 720p material (read: textures etc.) allow the game to be rendered at native 720p and thus look better regarding the res? Not saying it wouldn't impact the FPS or anything, just, hypothetically speaking.

i've had it lock up once on the 60 gig ps3

what i'm waiting for is the supported 1080p video output the collectors box and the game case say it supports