GTA V pushed to September

Rockstar Games has announced that its fifth instalment of Grand Theft Auto will now not hit shelves until September 17th, 2013.

This represents a back-step for the company, which had said its crime-world game would be out this spring, with Rockstar saying it needed additional development time.

"Grand Theft Auto V continues to push the series forward in new ways; Rockstar North are creating our deepest, most beautiful and most immersive world yet," said Sam Houser, studio founder.

"We are very excited for people to learn more about the game in the coming months."

Since the announcement the developer's owner and publisher, Take-Two, has seen its share price dip 6.8% to $12.17.

The company's fortunes have been heavily linked to the release of its Grand Theft Auto titles, with the share price at one point soaring to $26 during the impending release of GTA IV and a take over bid by EA.

While the bid turned hostile, Take Two was able to shrug off EA's advances and its share price settled as consumers burned themselves out on GTA IV.

James Lee

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James Lee is a freelance writer and analyst with extensive experience in the technology, media and games sectors. For the past few years he has provided content for internationally published industry reports, SEO companies and a variety of news-focused websites. Prior to this, James was responsible for covering news and producing in-depth features for GamesIndustry.biz while occasionally contributing to its sister-site. Eurogamer.net. In addition to this he has contributed to other notable sites such as CVG.co.uk, Edge-Online and DigitalSpy.