Just two weeks before Grand Theft Auto 6 finally comes out, CEO of Rockstar Games’ parent company, Take-Two Interactive, Strauss Zelnick, has spoken about the decision to delay the highly anticipated game before eventually settling on the November 19th release date. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Zelnick called the delays “very difficult decisions to make”.
However, he also spoke about the value of ensuring that the released product is of the highest possible quality. This sometimes means that companies have to make “inconvenient decisions” so that the quality of the game can remain high, despite the decisions themselves ending up being quite expensive.
He said that when “your mission is to make the best entertainment on earth, and part of your three-part strategy is to be the most creative, sometimes you have to make these expensive and inconvenient decisions in service of that mission and goals.”
Discussing the industry at large, Zelnick said that some companies tend to fall short of their mission statements that would otherwise embrace high-quality output. “There are a lot of companies who have a great mission statement, a stated strategy, and a culture, but then when push comes to shove, you know, they do something that’s at odds with that.”
“I’m not going to throw any competitors under the bus,” he continued, “but if you know anything about the video game business, in the past few years, there was a very high-profile release that fell into this category, and they shipped, and they had to pull the title after shipping.”
He did, however, note that even Take-Two Interactive doesn’t “just say yes” when someone asks Zelnick for more time. He brought up a recent time that he said, “actually, we’re shipping”. On this subject, he went on to say, “Oh, by the way, thankfully I was right. Imagine if I’d been wrong.”
As for the company he didn’t name, he is likely referring to CD Projekt and its disastrous launch of Cyberpunk 2077 back in 2020. The title saw several delays before coming out, and was still plagued with severe technical issues. The company even had to delist it from some online stores due to the sheer number of refunds that were being requested at the time. While CD Projekt RED eventually worked hard to improve the game, making it a beloved title in the long run, the game’s launch is still noted by many players as having left a sour taste in their mouths.
As for Grand Theft Auto 6, the title is slated for release on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The company has been ramping up its marketing efforts in the final weeks leading up to the launch, and recently released 39 new screenshots that showcased some of the open-world title’s world and characters.
Pre-loading for Grand Theft Auto 6 is set to begin on November 10th, and Rockstar Games has confirmed that it will require 212 GB of storage space. In the meantime, check out analysts’ reports about the pre-order performance of the game.
