Rumour Bust: GTA IV Online Multiplayer Xbox 360 Exclusive

Don Mattrick, senior VP of the Interactive Entertainment Business in the Entertainment and Devices Division of Microsoft (whew!), has spawned a rash of rumoury suggesting that the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV will be the only one to have online multiplayer. Having contacted Rockstar, however, SPOnG can confirm that both the 360 and the PS3 releases will have online multiplayer.

A Rockstar rep told us, "As we've said previously, both versions of the game will have an online multiplayer component."

The rumour started with comments from Mattrick on the Major Nelson podcast^†, where he said GTA IV is "an amazing piece of software and I'm really excited with its downloadable content and online multiplayer support. Again, that's something that's unique to 360. We think consumers are going to love that and it's going to create, what I would describe again as the premium experience on our platform."

Bearing in mind what Rockstar told us, it looks like Mattrick saying, "that's something that's unique to 360" was referring to the downloadable content.

It just goes to show, though, a spot of ambiguity can get you a lot of publicity...

You can catch SPOnG's latest preview of GTA IV here.

^{†Source: Major Nelson}