Take-Two has confirmed that the first installment of downloadable content (DLC) for Grand Theft Auto IV has been pushed back to the first quarter of 2009.

In the company’s call to investors today, CEO Ben Feder claimed that the delay was, in fact, completely by choice. “The reason we moved it is more about portfolio balance than anything else… the delay is not about development issues,” he said.

“The 2009 release of this highly anticipated episode will provide better balance among top titles,” he said.

We just put his words through our corporate PR translator and it told us Take-Two has already made a few hundred truckloads of money this year, so releasing the DLC next financial year makes a lot of sense.