GTA IV Freezing Issues

[krumlin]

Has GTA freezed for anyone yet? There are countless complaints that it freezes and will not work on many 60g PS3s. THEN you can't even play any other game till you delete the game data!!
I just got the game, and I won't be enjoying it, instead just cringing waiting for it to freeze at any moment aaaaagh!

Rockstar Support: No GTA Freeze Fix in Sight

Earlier today we broke the news that some Grand Theft Auto IV gamers were having problems with the game on both the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

For them, the game was freezing up during the introductory cut-scene, something that neither I nor Mike experienced during our time with the game on both systems. To be clear, we have no idea how widespread the problem is, but it's certainly on Rockstar's radar and making the rounds both in our tips line and on forums.

Rockstar declined to comment on the issue officially, so I went to the phone and called up Rockstar Support to see what they had to say about the problem.

A very friendly, and obviously unhappy, fellow answered the phone who, after thanking me for not yelling at him and apologizing profusely for the problem, spilled quite a bit of beans on the issue:

The man told me that the problem is apparently only effecting the 60 GB version of the Playstation 3, but that it didn't matter than my particular console was a launch console (Yes, I told a little white lie and said my copy was locking up.) He said the problem is not across the board for the 60GB PS3s but rather only impacts some, so their tech folks are working around the clock to try and figure out what is causing the issue.

He did ask me to make sure that my harddrive wasn't full and that I had the latest firmware update, but confessed that that really isn't what's causing most of the problem. He also said that the Xbox 360 is having the "exact same problem," which has further stumped their tech folks.

I asked him if wiping the harddrive and reinstalling the PS3 version would help, as seen on the PS forums, he said I could try but that he hadn't heard of it helping a single person.

He ended the call by saying that they really have no idea when a fix will be coming because they can't figure out what is exactly causing the problem and then once more apologized.

"I feel terrible about this."

If only more support folks were as empathetic and genuinely concerned about the problems their customers are going through.