Take-Two registers GTA: San Andreas

Grand Theft Auto fans looking to shoot up Las Vegas are likely in for a disappointment. Two weeks before Amazon UK began taking pre-orders for Grand Theft Auto: Sin City--the Las Vegas-set title inspired by a 2003 April Fool's Day post on Shacknews.com--Take-Two quietly registered a different title.

On December 17, 2003, Take-Two registered three titles--GTA: San Andreas, GTA 5, and GTA 6--with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Since Vice City was the fourth game in the Grand Theft Auto series* it would seem that the next installment in the series will be either called GTA 5 or GTA: San Andreas.

(Vice City is technically the fifth game in the series, which includes the largely overlooked expansion to the original GTA, Grand Theft Auto: London, 1969.)

While Take-Two referred to the next GTA as "Grand Theft Auto 5" in a conference call earlier this year, San Andreas is the more likely title. San Andreas, a hybrid of Los Angeles and San Francisco, is the only city featured in the original Grand Theft Auto yet to make an appearance in the next-generation game (Liberty City was in GTAIII and Vice City showed up in an eponymous game). The San Andreas theory is further backed up by the fact that Take-Two has not registered "GTA: Sin City" or "Grand Theft Auto: Sin City" with the Trademark Office.

Interestingly, Take-Two registered only titles with the "GTA" acronym, and did not register "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas", "Grand Theft Auto 5," or "Grand Theft Auto 6." This indicates they may be following in the footsteps of KFC (nee Kentucky Fried Chicken) in using acronyms to make a potentially unpalatable product more easily consumable by the mainstream. Rockstar representatives had not responded to GameSpot inquiries as of press time.