Grand Theft Auto 5 Screenshots Helicopter Shooting

It's been a busy November for Rockstar's Dan Houser. After a year-long absence from the public light, Grand Theft Auto V made an impressive showing this month with a huge outlaying of details and a brand new trailer around its three protagonists. Houser, the game's lead writer and creator, has been active every step of the way -- explaining why the franchise made such a drastic shift to multiple, synchronously playable protagonists; how Grand Theft Auto V's open world, the largest yet, will be "larger than life;" and why the game isn't being developed for next-generation platforms.

As Houser's most recent comments have shown, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 might not be the only platforms Grand Theft Auto V sails over.

Speaking in an interview to IGN, Houser reaffirmed the nebulous status of Grand Theft Auto V on the Nintendo Wii U and the PC: Other than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, GTA V's confirmed platforms, "everything is up for consideration," he said. Houser expressed affection and appreciation for all three console makers -- Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony -- but at the same time he defended Rockstar's postition as a third party company, its freedom to pick and choose amongst the best business and technology opportunities, creating fun where it fits:

"Everything else [besides the PS3 and Xbox 360] is up for consideration. That's all I can give you. The main thing is we are not... we are a third-party publisher. We're not Nintendo, we're not Sony, we're not Microsoft. We love all of them in different ways. But we can do what we want wherever there's the appropriate business opportunity and chance to find a market. If that's on Apple we put something on Apple. Wherever it might be. I think that's the fun in what we do. We see ourselves as a content company that uses technology. We don't make it; we use it to make the most fun stuff."

Even if they are equally nondescript, Houser's comments seem more optimistic about future development opportunities than Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick's back in July. It was then, speaking during E3, that Zelnick stated he was "skeptical" about bringing the company's mature titles to Nintendo's next-gen console. (Take-Two Interactive is the parent company of Rockstar Games.) Likely, the PC would be Rockstar's first preference in expanding the list of GTA V platforms -- Grand Theft Auto IV released on the PC 8 months after its 360/PS3 debut -- but still, the Wii U is nothing if not a console with enormous innovative potential down the road.

While the wait to see where and when Grand Theft Auto V releases lingers on, however, one creative fan has reproduced last week's GTA V trailer in Grand Theft Auto IV. YouTube user underage117  lifted the clip's audio track and ran it against in-game footage of the 2008 Liberty City epic. The result: part hilarious nostalgia, part appreciation for the pliancy of GTA IV's engine, and part thankfulness for the fact that our three new protagonists have facial animations.

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As sagaciously noted, Grand Theft Auto IV is, indeed, available now. In fact, in its near-five years of existence it's been the source of countless fan-made-video classics, including two of our picks: "Carmageddon"  and "Mastermind".  With Grand Theft Auto V featuring a world nearly five times the size of Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption, we don't imagine the ideas will be running dry with the next installment of the game, either.

Grand Theft Auto V releases in the spring of 2013 and has only been confirmed for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

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Follow Brian on Twitter @Brian _Sipple.

Sources: IGN, Youtube [via Kotaku]