There's a bunch of small towns and villages and whatnot in there to discover and play around in. Doing other cities, though, felt like it was going to create problems we didn't need. It wasn't going to add to the experience. Of course you could do a game with a bunch of cities now that could be pretty interesting, but we didn't think that was going to be this game. This map is going to be spectacular to people when they start exploring and playing around with it
Sort of glad to see this. I loved the scope of SA with it's analogs for SF and LV, but neither felt as fleshed out as Los Santos. They had their spots (which SF's collection minigame pointed out to you through the lens of a camera) but they felt unfinished on some level, like they lacked the feeling of the town they were emulating. Might have been a mix of lighting and AI--people felt the same no matter where you went and the Strip felt like downtown LS with more lights. I realize they were very limited in their resources, but some differences in those two areas would have increased the latter two towns characters by a decent amount.
I'm rambling. Main point is I'm glad they're making one city and going with smaller towns around it. Should help them maintain focus on all of those small details that give GTA its incredible style.