Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA 5) is going to face stiff competition from Ubisoft with their own open world crime thriller - Watch Dogs.

Gaming executive Alain Corre with Ubisoft told Edge Online that his company hopes the new open-world game will be the first in a major series.

"What we want with Watch Dogs is to try and crack a new genre, which is the open-style GTA genre," he said.

Corre stated the new game will allow people to play the game "seamlessly from your smartphone, from your tablet and from your PC." This allows players to keep up with a network of friends that are important to the game play.

Ubisoft is hoping that the new connected features of Watch Dogs will grant it an edge in the gaming market against GTA 5.

"Yes, Grand Theft Auto is one of the biggest brands in the industry and everybody respects the brand and we'll have fun playing the next one too, but I think Watch Dogs' positioning is also on next-gen, bringing a lot of features - connectivity, interactivity, companion gaming and so on which is bringing some freshness to the genre."

Both GTA 5 and Watch Dogs will release later in the year that will place them in direct competition for gamers and holiday shoppers.

GTA 5 is slated to come out for the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles in North America on Sept. 17.

The latest game in the GTA series is not expected to have a version for the next-generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter.

Pachter was quoted by Video Gamer stating that GTA 5 will likely come "eventually" for the PS4 and Xbox 720, but that it will not take place at the launch.

Watch Dogs is scheduled to be released in late 2013 for the Nintendo Wii U, PC, PS3, PS4, and Xbox 360. An Xbox 720 version of the game is also expected near the launch date, according to VG247.

Tags: gta 5 watch dogs