Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony has only been in the hands of gamers for a couple of weeks now, but that hasn't stalled the number of GTA related news articles. Recently, we covered the growing speculation on where the next GTA game might be located. Now, we're bringing you some very early details about Grand Theft Auto V from Dan Houser, Vice President of Creativity for Rockstar Games. In an interview with The Times London, Houser briefly discussed the upcoming game, as well as offered insight into the GTA series as a whole.

Speaking about Grand Theft Auto V, Houser said: "We'll think of a city first, then the characters." According to Houser the script he will co-write with his brother Sam will run about 1,000 pages, which is, as the article points out, around ten times as long as a film script. Maybe they could save a hundred or so pages by editing out any irritating cousins.

As for the speculation, the use of the future tense "we'll" hints at the possibility that Grand Theft Auto V is still a long ways off and the "Liberty City It's Over... Next Stop" tease likely indicates a sequel-structure similar to what we've previously seen with Grand Theft Auto III and its subsequent installments Vice City and San-Andreas.

ockstar puts a lot of stake in denoting an actual sequel, there was a seven year stretch of time between Grand Theft Auto III and IV, dependent on largely new ideas for gameplay and improved graphics to justify an actual numeral bump. In 2001, when GTA III was released on the PS2, the game represented a large-scale step up from its PlayStation predecessors. GTA IV also illustrated a similar leap ahead when it debuted on the next generation consoles in 2008 featuring improved graphics and story-telling features.

It seems unlikely that GTA V will be the next release in the series. Could Rockstar hold out until the next-next-generation consoles? That might be too far off but following their previous episodic MO, it would seem as though we're due for a couple new location-specific Grand Theft Auto IV spin-offs, as The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony were merely extensions of the current GTA IV location and plot, before GTA V actually makes its debut.

We'll certainly be looking to March 2010 with anticipation, eager to uncover the mysteries behind Rockstar's tease.

So the question is... what denotes a new Grand Theft Auto series numeral?

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony is available now for Xbox owners.

Source: The Times London