Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick is surprisingly candid about how he feels about console refreshes.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.Biz, Strauss was asked if he expected Sony and Microsoft to release PlayStation 5 Pro consoles and Xbox Series Pro consoles for this generation.
The question came up because the two current generation consoles are at the same point of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One life cycle where Sony and Microsoft introduced the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X.
This is what Zelnick had to say:
“We probably will (see console refreshes), and they did not affect the business very much.”
Zelnick speaks as if he does not have insider information if Microsoft and Sony do have such plans, but it seems more that he isn’t particularly bothered or interested by the possibility either way.
In fact, in the same interview, Zelnick confirmed that the publisher would continue to release games on the Nintendo Switch, a console which is on its 7th year on the market. There is already mounting speculation on the next console Nintendo will produce after the Switch, but Nintendo themselves have yet to share details.
Take-Two’s name is synonymous with Rockstar Games, but the publisher actually has a host of other game studios under its belt, making it more like Embracer Group than EA. Among those studios are newly acquired mobile game company Zynga, 2K Games, and Ghost Studio Games with Ken Levine. The company also has a label for publishing smaller games, called Private Division.
With that in mind, Take-Two Interactive takes a broader view of the industry compared to their competitors. On one end, they are similar to 2K in terms of their annualized licensed sports games. These games incentivize them to publish on old and new platforms alike, to reach out to the core fans.
On the other end, they can afford to take their time with their bigger projects. While GTA 6 continues to be the subject of speculation, Take-Two and Rockstar are in no rush to get the game out early. GTA V and especially GTA Online, continue to be major revenue drivers for the company, three console generations later.
What console refreshes do is it compels some developers to make games that run especially well for those more powerful consoles, but not every game or franchise can expect guaranteed success that way. Take-Two’s business isn’t part of that noise, so they will just keep getting fans with their games on whatever platforms are still relevant for them.
