Rockstar Games has announced that Grand Theft Auto III: 10 Year Anniversary Edition will be available on the 15th of December for select iOS and Android smartphones.

The app will cost US$4.99.

Grand Theft Auto III set players loose as a small-time aspiring criminal at the bottom of the food chain in Liberty City, a sprawling metropolis where anything can happen – and probably will.

 

Grand Theft Auto III was released for the PlayStation 2 on 22nd October, 2001. To celebrate the 10th anniversary, Rockstar has announced it will be bringing the game to selected iOS and Android devices later this year.

Grand Theft Auto III set players loose as a small-time criminal at the bottom of the food chain in Liberty City, a sprawling metropolis where anything can happen – and probably will.

“Grand Theft Auto III showed us the potential of open world games,” said Rockstar founder Sam Houser. “It helped set the vision for the company, and we have been expanding on those possibilities with every game ever since.”

 

To celebrate the Chinese New Year, Rockstar Games are discounting Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the iPhone and iPod touch by 30% until Sunday, the 14th of February.

GTA: Chinatown Wars is the most critically acclaimed PSP game to date.

 

Can great games be made for 99c?

So piracy is rampant, physical media is on the decline and people want the option of getting everything delivered by broadband, and they want to pay less for it. Fair enough, you might say. The technology exists, the distribution costs very little and in a competitive marketplace the consumer will decide what is a fair price for a song, movie, game, etc.

So what happens in this scenario? We can look to the iPhone game market for an insight into the consequences. This comprises a section of the iPhone App Store and allows developers to set the price of their games, and change them at will to respond to consumer demand.

In theory, what should have happened was that products end up at prices reflecting their quality and worth. The people making quality games should have been rewarded and the rest should have been filtered out.

 

Wellington-based game development studio Sidhe has announced the formation of a new publishing and development group called PikPok, which will focus on the growing iPhone and iPod Touch apps market.

PikPok's first title is Fame, a rhythmic music game based on the upcoming MGM feature film. Available now from the iTunes Store for NZ$4.19, Fame lets players dance their way to the top and see if they have what it takes to be famous. Featuring multiple licensed songs and three difficulty levels, the game is played by tapping and sliding your fingers across the screen, showing your moves in full dance routines. Scores can be uploaded to Facebook and Twitter.

Sidhe is New Zealand's largest game production studio, and moved into console self-publishing with the successful release of Shatter on PSN in July. PikPok will combine Sidhe's development strengths with its publishing capabilities to create a "vertically integrated" studio that is well positioned to capitalise on current and future market opportunities, the company claimed.