Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has told the Cowen and Company Analyst Conference that he considers Red Dead Redemption to be a "permanent franchise," the second time he has done after previously referring to the IP as such in July of last year.
He remarked, as quoted by GameSpot, that:
"The risk of just [releasing more games] is that you end up just bulking up your release schedule and that isn't really what consumers want. Consumers want better, not more. So our selective approach, which we've taken since '07 I think has paid off.
"Now, we have gotten more by taking that approach; we've launched one new successful franchise every year and I would like to keep doing that particularly because I talk about permanent franchises, but not everything is going to be a permanent franchise. Some of our great franchises eventually will lose their luster and some will hopefully be permanent."
"I pretty much know the ones that I can assure you are permanent. It's obvious that GTA is a permanent franchise as long as we keep delivering this incredible quality; it seems quite obvious that Red Dead is a permanent franchise, again with the same caveat, or Borderlands, for example, and NBA and others.
"But not everything is going to be a permanent franchise. We can do very well even if it's not. I would like to see us grow with a couple more great franchises in the next couple years and we're launching Evolve; we have very high hopes for that."
Zelnick was then asked about the future of the BioShock franchise following the dissolution of Irrational Games earlier this year to which he replied:
"We haven't given any colour on how you should think about it yet except we do believe it's beloved; we think it's important [and] certainly something that we're focused on; something 2K Marin will be responsible for shepherding going forward. I don't want to say much else except to agree with you. I think there's a lot of upside in that franchise.
"It hasn't necessarily been realized yet. And the question for the future, assuming we decide to answer the question, would be 'How do you stay true to that creatively?'; 'How do you do something exciting?'; and 'How do you do expand the market?'. That would be the natural drill. We're starting from a good point on it. And certainly it's been a great piece of business for us; it's been a profitable piece of business."
Following the company's latest financial results, Zelnick revealed that Rockstar is developing a game for release on PS4 and Xbox One before the end of March, 2015.
