10 Things That Almost Completely Changed GTA History

6. MP3s

Reflecting the changing state of the music industry, GTA IV was originally going to include a player initiated MP3 player for Niko Bellic. As confirmed by MTV the creators had planned to give Niko a portable music player, but they removed it late in development, preferring to stick to the traditional GTA music model. As close as a couple of months before release, Niko's cell phone could play music from the game's radio stations, meaning players could rock out outside of cars and select buildings. Perhaps fatally, that would have blocked out all of the ambient noise on the streets of Liberty City, which would have been a major, unnecessary cost for a large number of players. The developers also considered letting players buy their own in-game music, by going to in-game record stores, which must be something considered in the future of the franchise, particularly if we ever get the online only iteration of the game that many fans want. That way, we could see the kind of micro-transactions that would make a free-to-play model viable for GTA.