Grand Theft Auto IV is finally here. The long awaited game, which reportedly had a budget of $45 million to make and a team of close to 1,000 people, is expected to earn somewhere between $360 and $400 million in sales, which means close to 5.8 million copies sold, during its first week of availability.

Grand Theft Auto IV isn’t just another game, it is this year’s sensation - a combination between a video game and a complex story, with an ending at the player’s choice and special missions we still know very little about.

Even before the game’s official release, the battle of the pre-orders began all over the world, as Grand Theft Auto managed to rank among the top selling games, such as Nintendo’s Wii Fit or Mario Kart Wii. Microsoft’s strategy to push Xbox ahead of the PS3 relies on an extra content, which is said to add up to 10 hours of game through 2 episodes that will become available in August 2008, thanks to a deal between them and Rockstar.

Although the game is rated M in the US, it is very probable that the release of GTA IV will reignite the debate about the violence in games. The Parents Television Council has already issued a statement, urging the retailers to not stock the game and to keep it out of the hands of children. The National Institute on Media and the Family has also advised the parents to not buy this game for their children.

However, there are already several reports of bugs in the PS3 version of the game. More precisely, the problem appears to affect 60GB Playstation 3s and is related to the install process. For example, several users have emailed The Inquirer and claimed GTA IV did not install on their gaming machines despite a factory reset and reformat of the drive.

PS3Forums.com has launched a poll which shows that 13 users reported in-game crashes or freezes on the 60GB NTSC version, or 54 percent of the reports. Also, there are 5 reports of crashes on the 60GB PAL version, 4 reports for the 20GB NTSC, and one report for both the 80GB NTSC and the 40GB PAL. Kotaku also reports that a Rockstar customer service person told them that the game is also locking up Xbox 360s.

This is not unexpected. Most GTA launches were plagued by bugs, but they will be fixed by Rockstar soon. Calls to Rockstar support by forum users have provided the information that the game developer is aware of the problems and is analyzing the disc image which was sent to manufacturing.

Reviewers have found that the single player version can be completed in 50 to 100 hours of gameplay. For the next thousands of hours you have to turn to multiplayer mode.