New Grand Theft Auto Headed to Handhelds?

Kris Erickson • Feb 2, 2009 • Comments (1)

In a recent audio interview with 1Up podcasters, a representative from Rockstar revealed that the company has yet another Grand Theft Auto game in the works, for a handheld platform:

"There’s another Grand Theft coming but it’s not on the system you think it is. There’s another GTA that they haven’t announced yet, that’s not on a console. They haven’t announced it… but… It’s a handheld. There’s a handheld GTA coming," he said.

Since we already know about Chinatown Wars DS, this leaves a very slim number of possibilities.

The first option is that Rockstar could be working on a follow up to Vice City Stories on the PSP. Fans have been clamoring for a return to San Andreas on the handheld, and this would make a logical progression. The first two GTA games were among the best selling titles of all time on the PSP, ensuring that this could be a profitable move for Rockstar. On the other hand, the PSP console has recently seen waning interest in North America and Europe, so we consider this to be among the less likely choices.

A much larger possibility is that the new GTA game is headed to the iPhone. Millions of people have snapped up the trendy touch-controlled phone over the past year, and a fully-featured Grand Theft Auto would be sure to sell bucket loads on the App Store platform. What’s more, Rockstar could port the upcoming Chinatown Wars over to the iPhone with minimal difficulty, since that game makes heavy use of touch input already. We wrote just the other day that we would love to see an oldschool GTa game like Chinatown Wars on the PSP, but actually an iPhone port makes a lot more sense.

But let’s not leave out Nokia and their new N-Gage system. The Scandinavian mobile phone company has been working very hard on their 3D gaming platform, and a high-profile agreement like this might be just what the company needs to build excitement for their entertainment offerings. Such an announcement may be unlikely, but still very possible.