Ahead of the official launch of GTA VI, Rockstar has put out a new set of mod guidelines for the upcoming action game, revealing strict rules surrounding the community's contributions to Leonida and the world of GTA as a whole. The modding guide, as spotted by users on the ResetEra forums, was silently launched on September 10, and it dictates what gamers and modders can and can't do with GTA games, imposing rather strict limitations in some places.

The limitations that stand out the most are the rules that disallow expanding or modifying "official storylines, plots, missions, characters, or other elements" of Rockstar's continuity. The studio also forbids mods that "combine maps, locations, characters, storylines, in-game assets, or other IP" between different Rockstar games. This comes after an early 2025 incident in which Liberty City Preservation Project, a mod that recreated GTA IV's map in GTA V, was taken down by Rockstar Games.

Microsoft has revealed the top 20 most popular games played on the Xbox 360 in 2011 based on numbers of unique users logged into Xbox LIVE (Silver and Gold members). Note that this gives a different result to the total playtime for a particular game, which has not been disclosed here. Unsurprisingly, the Call of Duty series dominates the chart, but what is sure to irk CoD detractors, but make fans very happy, is that a massive five of those positions are taken up by CoD - that's 25% of the rankings. Even CoD4: Modern Warfare which was released way back in 2007 sits at a very respectable number 14. However, top games Battlefield 3 and Skyrim did very well nonetheless, sitting at five and six respectively, with only Halo beating them at number 4. Can you guess which CoD game hit the top spot before looking at the chart?

RivaTuner, a very powerful and easy to use video card tweaking utility, was updated today to version 2.21. This release has a small number of updates yet mainly is a hotfix for Grand Theft Auto 4 missing texture issue for some GeForce owners in combo with this tool. NVIDIA GeForce drivers 180.60, 180.70 and 180.84 as well as AMD/ATI Catalyst 8.12 are also supported now. For detailed information, please check out the changelist below.

DOWNLOAD: RivaTuner Version 2.21

Rockstar has confirmed that the PC version of GTA IV will be delayed by more than a month until December 2nd. The reason behind this delay remains unknown, but the game maker has at least released the minimum and recommended system requirements for the game. Check them out below.

PLAYSTATION3 (PS3) firmware update 2.35 is now available. According to the PlayStation Blog, v2.35 is "a relatively minor update" that should "improve stability of some PS3 titles." Unfortunately Rockstar's GTA IV is not among these PS3 games. Al De Leon, SCEA's PR Manager said: "I just want to clarify that this upcoming firmware update isn't related to GTA IV. For those of you who may still have an issue playing the game on your PS3, we have identified a solution that should resolve the issue. You can contact SCEA Consumer Services for support."

After smashing all-time entertainment records for day one and week one sales by dollar value, Rockstar Games has patched Grand Theft Auto IV today. The patch will hopefully prevent the game from further lock-ups and improve multiplayer performance by reducing server load. "Rockstar Games has released a GTA IV patch for Playstation 3 today that prevents Gamespy's servers from being overloaded and therefore reduces the impact on those servers that were causing the game to stutter and lock up," The company also added: "We continue to monitor the performance of the game both on and offline and will provide further updates as necessary. We want to assure everyone that, together with our hardware partners, we continue to strive to give our fans the best possible interactive entertainment experiences possible." The update will be offered once the player is online and try to start the game.

In connection with the numerous reports of Grand Theft Auto IV freezing up on some PlayStation 3 consoles, Take-Two's technical support today posted a 12 step remedy that should fix the problems. Sony also confirmed the existance of the freezing issues with GTA IV and said that it is working with all concerned parties to pin down and fix the issue. The 12-part workaround response follows below the Read full story marker.

During Take-Two's recent shareholders' meeting, the publisher said that GTA IV has gone gold. GTA IV has entered mass production and is ready to be on store shelves for its release on April 29th. The game is rated M for Mature and will release on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Many experts prognosticate that GTA IV will sell more than 9.5 million units, with 5.8 million units in US alone, during its global opening-week.

Rockstar Games has uploaded what is the be the final trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV before the game's release on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 at the end of next month. Titled Good Lord, What Are You Doing? AKA Everyone's a Rat, you can stream the trailer from RockStar's website or download the 70MB HD trailer here.

Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV is almost certain to become one of the biggest hits of 2008, and now some details about the game's online capabilities have finally been released. According to Spain's official PlayStation magazine, the game will support up to 16 players on one server, offering a choice of 15 different game modes. Each of the modes will be set in the single player maps, with options including deathmatches, races, mafia work, turf wars, cops 'n' crooks, car jack city, bomb da base II and free mode. GTA IV is scheduled for release on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on 29th April, although the online features may vary on each console. As you would expect, options such as weapon selection, police interference and traffic density can all be modified.

Following failed talks with Take-Two's management, games developer Electronic Arts has instead decided to directly approach shareholders with its takeover bid. EA has kept its offer at $26 per share, which would give the deal a total value of around $2 billion. EA's CEO, John Riccitiello, said:

This is a great opportunity for Take-Two shareholders. We believe Take-Two investors will see our tender offer as the best way to maximize the value of their investment in Take-Two. This tender offer provides a clear process to complete the proposed transaction. For EA shareholders, the combination would add additional intellectual properties to our already strong portfolio and welcome Take-Two's talented creative teams to the great development organization we've built at EA.

Take-Two has issued a notice to all of its shareholders urging them not to accept the offer, but EA has set a deadline of 11th April - two weeks before the release of the eagerly awaited Grand Theft Auto IV.

A few days ago, in an interview, Xbox chief Don Mattrick made a confounding proclamation. The proclamation said something along the lines of "GTA IV multiplayer will be Xbox360 exclusive" (please see source link for full version). After several raised eyebrows, Microsoft clarified that this was just a slip of tongue. Instead of Grand Theft Auto IV only having a multiplayer mode in the Xbox360 version, there will instead be some exclusive content only available to Xbox360 gamers. Rockstar took this one step further, and confirmed that Sony has a little something up their sleeve for PS3 gamers as well.