Grand Theft Auto V was released on Tuesday and it has already managed to generate just over $800 million during its first 24 hours at retail and through digital distribution channels, according to publisher Take-Two Interactive. Take-Two says that these day-one sales are the highest in the company's history and for the Grand Theft Auto series. By comparison, Grand Theft Auto IV sold 3.6 million copies, generating $310 million during its launch day in April 2008. Take-Two has not disclosed how many GTA V copies have been sold thus far.

A publicity stunt by several Micromania employees in Montargis (a town south of Paris, France) to celebrate the launch of Grand Theft Auto V led to a frenzy of law enforcement agents who thought something real was going on. The employees dressed up as criminals complete with face masks and toy guns.

Hawick (a town far to the south of Edinburgh, Scotland) councilor David Paterson says that a district in Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto V with the same name could hurt the reputation of the town. Speaking to the BBC, Paterson said that he was disgusted to learn that a "druggie hipster" district is named after his town:

Three men from Staten Island were so excited to get their copy of Grand Theft Auto V that they used an unconventional means to get to the front of a long line: they posed as police officers.

MSNBC personality Ed Schultz has been insulting our intelligence with his show on TV and radio for years, but now he's taking aim at your mom. In a segment that aired this week, while holding up a copy of Grand Theft Auto V, he suggested that anyone who would let their kids play the game is a bad parent. Naturally Andrew Eisen thought he'd call his mom to get her reaction.

Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive told fans in this support forum thread that it is "happy for fans" to upload gameplay footage, but warns them that any videos containing spoilers and other "in-game entertainment" will be flagged for removal via a takedown notice to whatever service they might be using.

A London man who bought a copy of Grand Theft Auto V when it went on sale at midnight was mugged on his way home from the store.

The unnamed 23-year-old man was "hit with a brick, stabbed and stripped of his mobile phone, watch and his copy of the game."

Luckily, he is in stable condition at a local hospital.  Three men were arrested in connection with the crime.

Robert W. Baird & Co. analyst Colin Sebastian is excited about the high review scores Grand Theft Auto V is getting and makes a prediction that the game will sell big in its first month at retail. This morning he sent a note to investors saying that his firm expects the latest entry in the popular Grand Theft Auto series to generate $1 billion in sales at retail over its first month of release.

While the petition to bring Grand Theft Auto to the PC has gotten plenty of media attention and a fair share of signatures (over 365,000 so far as of this morning) another petition on Change.org isn't getting as much love. As Andrew Eisen pointed out this morning, the petition to bring Grand Theft Auto V to the Wii U has only managed to garner 4,313 signatures of the 20,000 it needs to be sent off to Rockstar Games. The petition has been online since 2012.

From the appeal on the petition to Rockstar Games / Take-Two Interactive:

Rockstar Games is warning consumers who buy the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto V (officially releasing at retail tomorrow for Xbox 360 and PS3 tomorrow) not to install the second disc marked "Play Disc." Apparently installing this disc to your hard drive will cause significant issues with how the game performs. The game comes on two discs: an "Install disc" and a "Play disc." The Install Disc is meant to be installed to your hard drive and takes up around 7.7 GB. The second disc can also be installed and will take up an additional 7.8 GB of HD space.

A petition on Change.org urging Rockstar Games to port Grand Theft Auto V to the PC has hit a major milestone recently; it now has over 365,000 signatures. The petition was created to urge Rockstar Games to bring the game to the PC platform as soon as possible after the game released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The game hits both those platforms officially tomorrow in the United States.

As of this writing, the petition has 365,006 supporters - up from the 200,000 signatures it managed to collect in July of this year.

Rockstar Games confirmed via Twitter that European gamers who preordered GTA V on PlayStation Network will be able to pre-load the game as of 3 p.m. British Summer Time on Sunday, Sept. 15. North American PSN users can begin that download at 3 a.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 16.

Rockstar Games' upcoming open-world action game Grand Theft Auto V may have cost up to $266 million to develop and market, according to a report by Scottish newspaper The Scotsman. The article also claims that industry analysts expect the game "could sell" upwards of 25 million copies in its first year on the market. That would generate over $1.56 billion in sales for Take-Two Interactive, they say.

This week's show is all about controversies, and there were so many to choose from last week including the return of complaints about Penny Arcade's "dick wolves," a sexier Quiet in Metal Gear Solid 5, Rockstar using real gang members for the voice acting in Grand Theft Auto 5, a scene deleted from the demo for Hotline Miami 2 because some found it offensive, and so much more. Download Episode 68 now: SuperPAC Episode 68 (1 hour, 29 minutes) 40.8 MB.

Here's an interesting tidbit from the production of Rockstar Games' soon-to-be-released Grand Theft Auto V: some of the voice acting was performed by real gang members. Apparently Rockstar had a "guy" who went around recruiting gang members to record for certain characters in the game, and some of these gang members even helped better shape the dialogue to make it more authentic.

This week hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight are joined by Joystiq Managing Editor Susan Arendt to talk about female soldiers in Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer, a Connecticut lawmaker who wants game makers to stop "licensing" deals with gun makers, the best reason to go to PAX, Gone Home and Saturday Morning RPG, that infamous OUYA ad, and even some of Andrew's LEGO game milestones. Download Episode 66 now: SuperPAC Episode 66 (1 hour, 15 minutes) 69.3 MB.

New research from Christopher Ferguson of Stetson University and independent researcher Cheryl Olson (author of Grand Theft Childhood) concludes that games such as Mortal Kombat, Grand Theft Auto, and Halo do not serve as "triggers" to teenagers with symptoms of depression or attention deficit disorder. In other words, video games do not cause these groups to become aggressive bullies, delinquents, or murderers.

Update: Kotaku has a decent round-up of all the coverage this story is getting on various networks including CNN, Fox, etc. As you might imagine, the anti-game pundits are eating this stuff up like candy. You can check it all out here.

Original Story: Louisiana law enforcement officials say that an 8-year-old boy "intentionally" shot and killed his elderly caregiver Thursday evening after playing "Grand Theft Auto."

Earlier this year a trailer for Grand Theft Auto V gave the public a glimpse at an odd vending machine that apparently allowed players to buy marijuana. At first people thought it was a bit of a goof, but it turns out that pot smoking is in GTA V, alongside the usual amounts of violence, criminal activities, sexual content, and other drug use.

Grand Theft Auto V developer Rockstar Games revealed the first details about Grand Theft Auto Online and released a new trailer today. Grand Theft Auto Online will be released on Oct. 1 - a few weeks after Grand Theft Auto V hits retail for Xbox 360 and PS3 (there's also a rumor that the game will come out on the PC by year's end but Take-Two and Rockstar have not officially confirmed that). Access to GTA Online will be free to anyone who has purchased GTA V.

Oops! Hardware makers Nvidia accidently disclosed that Grand Theft Auto is actually coming to the PC, and that it will be published this fall. During a financial call last week Nvidia senior director of investor relations Chris Evenden told investors that PC gamers could expect a beefy line-up of decent titles including "Call of Duty: Ghosts, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Assassin's Creed 4."

Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive filed a complaint this week with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) seeking to claim the domain GTAV.com. The domain name is currently registered to a Spanish resident and listed as "for sale." While the domain name currently redirects users to the official Grand Theft Auto V website, in February it sent users to a blog about the game.

Take-Two has filed more over 24 disputes against websites related to GTA V - including one that promised access to a beta test of the game (gta5betacode.com).

Take Two Interactive's and Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto V passed through the Australian Classification Board review process and survived, earning an R18+ rating for the region. Many were concerned that the game might end up getting refused classification on its first pass through the process much like Saint's Row IV and State of Decay did earlier this year. Saint's Row IV still remains effectively banned in the region, even after the game went through a second review earlier this week.

A petition on Change.org calling for a PC version of Rockstar's upcoming game Grand Theft Auto V has over 200,000 signatures. While Rockstar hasn't ruled out a PC version, the company has not officially announced that it is working on it either. With GTA IV, Rockstar released a PC version eight months after the console game releases.

The petition jumped from 100,000 signatures in November 2012 to 150,000 in February of this year. Now the signatures are well above 200,000.

After announcing that Grand Theft Auto V would be getting released a little later in the year than was previously announced and expected, some financial analysts have decided to adjust their opinion on Take-Two Interactive's future earnings. One such firm is BMO Capital Markets.

BMO Capital Markets analyst Edward S. Williams said in a note to investors that Take-Two moving the upcoming launch of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V for the PS3 and Xbox 360 from a spring 2013 release window to Sept. 17 will have an impact:

According to documents unearthed by Motley Fool, Billionaire Ken Griffin has increased his financial stake in publisher Take-Two Interactive. Ken Griffin's Citadel Investment Group now holds 5.5 million shares in the company, according to a December 28 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That's a substantial jump from the 3 million shares of Take-Two stock held by Griffin's group in October of 2012.

If you have ever wondered (and believe me you are not alone in your imaginings) what a Grand Theft Auto game might look like if developer Traveler's Tales ever got the opportunity to create it, then you will want to check out this video from thefourmonkeys. The video is an entry in the Machina Interactive film festival, which you can vote for right here.

My, Mr. Zelnick sure is chatty this week.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told GameSpot UK that the secret to Grand Theft Auto's continued success is the fact that the games are released years apart, making each debut special.

"It's our view that if you want intellectual properties to be permanent," said Zelnick, "then you run the risk in that circumstance of having consumers fall out of love with that franchise. [Activision] obviously views the world differently."

While Grand Theft Auto V is coming to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next year, Rockstar Games has said that other platforms such as the PC and Wii U are still "under consideration" at this time. This is apparently not a strong enough response from PC gamers who want the game on their preferred platform and in a timely fashion. To that end a petition on Change.org has been launched. So far that petition has over 50,000 signatures from gamers who want to see GTA V on the PC.

In Episode 30 of the Super Podcast Action Committee hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight discuss the possibility that Grand Theft Auto V will cause controversy when it is released, a lawsuit about a tattoo in a video game, what a stripper thinks about 'the Saints' in the latest Hitman game and a whole lot more. Sorry, no time for complaining about the Wii U this week! Download it now: SuperPAC Episode 30 (1 hour) 56 MB.