Looks like we won’t be getting our little thug-crazed hands on GTA IV this year after all. Take-Two Interactive released the news yesterday and it looks like it’s going to significantly reduce their profits for 2007. Y! News reports:

Without warning, this afternoon Take-Two Interactive stunned the game industry by announcing it was delaying Grand Theft Auto IV to the second quarter of its 2008 fiscal year, which begins on February 1, 2008. Published by Take-Two subsidiary Rockstar Games, the crime-action title had been slated to ship for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in North America on October 16, 2007.

“Take-Two is reducing its fiscal 2007 guidance primarily to reflect the movement of the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV for the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system and the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 to fiscal 2008, due to additional development time required to complete the title,” the company said in a statement issued after the Wall Street markets closed.

This turn of events will reduce Take-Two’s 2007 estimated profits from $1.2 billion down to $1.0 billion. A billion still sounds like a lot, but the difference is still significant. So now with the game bumped until second quarter of 2008 that means we won’t see it until spring or early summer. That’s quite a delay and makes me wonder just what really happened there.