It’s hard to deny how successful Take 2 is as a publisher- the company owns 2K Games, the folks behind the popular Civilization, XCOM, Borderlands, Bioshock, and 2K Sports games, but more importantly, also owns Rockstar, the company that brings us Red Dead and GTA, the latter of which includes the highest selling game of all time among its ranks.

What I am trying to say is, they’re really, really successful- apparently successful enough that they feel comfortable taking potshots at the competition. At least, I have to assume so, because that’s exactly what Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick did in an interview with GamesBeat.

For instance, speaking about Ubisoft, Zelnick pointed out that Take 2 manages to make more money than Ubisoft in spite of not having as many employees as Ubisoft does, implying that the competition has bloated organization structure.

“We are a global business, but we’re not that big. We have 4,200 people. We have 17 studio locations. It’s not that far-flung. We’re still able to get our arms around it,” he said. “They [Ubisoft] have 14,000 people, and their revenue is less than ours. We don’t understand it.”

He also talked about EA’s strategy in pushing every single game on the same engine (in this case, Frostbite), noting that in his perspective, that is a strategy that does not make sense.

“Take a look at our quality versus theirs [EA’s],” he said. “I don’t think it’s realistic to say to people, “We think you’re the best creators in the business. Come in and do your best work. Oh, and incidentally, you have to use this technology over here.” We do care what the technology is. We do care how much we spend on development. Rockstar has a proprietary engine. Within the 2K label, there are proprietary engines. We also license external software.

“We don’t think there’s much of a percentage in having a corporate engine. Midway had a vaunted corporate engine, corporate technology library. Midway filed for bankruptcy. There’s little evidence that having a corporate technology system is in service of the best entertainment properties. But reasonable people can disagree about that. It’s not our strategy.”

Those are… certainly rather explicitly aggressive words. On the other hand, as I said, when you have games and brands such as GTA, Red Dead, and Civilization under your belt, you can afford to be a bit more boisterous than you would otherwise have to be.

The narrative that single player games are dead, or close to dying, driven out by the success of multiplayer and games as a service style games, has been pretty pervasive for a while now. For some reason, it is a myth that has continued to persist, in spite of the success of games like The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, The Witcher, Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and of course, GTA5.

That kind of selective consideration of the market is not something that Take 2, the parent company of Rockstar, the folks who bring us GTA and Red Dead, wants to engage in. Speaking to GamesBeat, Take-Two Interactive CEO Straus Zelnick said that single player games are nowhere close to being “dead”.

“Historically, in entertainment, people take positions like that, but there are also people saying that it won’t work if it’s not a free-to-play battle royale,” he said “People really are saying that, and not even tongue-in-cheek. I don’t buy that. Single-player, in my opinion, is not dead, not even close. Companies that feel like they’ll just avoid the hard work of building a story and characters and go right to where the money is in multiplayer, I don’t think that’s going to work. I’d be surprised.”

I think Zelnick does have a leg to stand on here- while GTA Online is a multiplayer sensation, which has contributed to its long term success, its multiplayer is rooted in the context built up by the single player campaign, which is extraordinarily high quality to begin with. And the enduring success of games from his companies, and companies such as Nintendo, Sony, Bethesda, and CD Projekt RED, should only serve to reinforce his point further.

The Nintendo Switch’s stunning success so far has come on the back of Nintendo’s superlative lineup of first party games for the system, and a great selection of indie games. By and large, third parties have completely missed the boat on the system, with the exception of Square Enix and Bethesda.

However, going forward, it seems like they will be unable to ignore the Switch, owing to its monstrous sales- speaking in a press release today, Nintendo boasted of “continued third party support” for the Switch from some of the biggest publishers, specifically naming EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Capcom, SEGA, Take 2 and Bethesda (and also emphasizing the strong selection of indie games the system will continue to get).

This is very interesting, because while we knew that Bethesda, for instance, plans to keep supporting the Switch going forward, the status of the other companies was in the air. I imagine EA will bring its other EA Sports games to the Switch this year, while Activision will look at Call of Duty? As for Take Two- can we finally get GTA5 on the Switch, please?

That Nintendo Direct really can’t come soon enough.

While this year is going to be a quieter year for Take 2, after the delay of Red Dead Redemption 2 into next year, it sounds like 2018 is promising to be a pretty big and eventful one for them. Not only is Red Dead Redemption 2 going to be out then, but it sounds like Take 2 is teasing another ‘huge title’ for next year, too.

“Obviously fiscal 2019 will look much better with the launch of Red Dead 2 and a huge new title from 2K, as well as the 2K Sports titles, catalogue, recurrent consumer spending, NBA2K Online in China, Social Point and the like,” Take 2 Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick told GamesIndustry during an interview.

The question is, what Take 2 game qualifies as being ‘huge’? The Rockstar properties, obviously- but Red Dead is already accounted for in that statement, and it is all but impossible that Rockstar also launches a brand new GTA game next year. Their next biggest properties are Bioshock and Borderlands– and with the former franchise being on somewhat of a hiatus, doesn’t it now sound likely that Borderlands 3 is what is being teased for a release next year? Especially since we already know that the game is under development currently?

GTA5 may be the most popular game in the world (or one of them- seriously, it’s at 80 million units sold now), but even it cannot afford to piss off its players. And yet, by declaring GTA mods as ‘illegal’ recently, that is exactly what publisher Take 2 have done.

The result? The result is that players are now rising up against the game in droves. Steam reviews for the game have become ‘overwhelmingly negative’ (Steam’s words, not mine), with over 30,000 reviews in the last 30 days being negative– most of them coming after Take 2’s cease and desist for the OpenIV modding tool, and citing their stance against mods as the reason. A petition on Change.Org has over 40,000 signatures, too, as players are demanding that Take 2 reverse their decision.

All of this is well and good- but as long as the game continues to make obscene amounts of money, which it will since the bulk of its sales come from the console version, as well as from GTA: Online, Rockstar and Take 2 are unlikely to care. Plus, I wish I could say that PC players are showing resolve, but the game is currently #7 in Steam’s concurrent players list, with a peak of over 92,000 players playing it at once earlier today.

So… yeah. I support mods, and I empathize with everyone raising their voice against Take 2 (and I have signed that Change.org petition myself). But… I honestly don’t think this is going to work, especially since, even on PC, GTA5 now seems to be too big to fail.

Take 2 may have an unnaturally empty slate of games this year, but it looks like it is already billing its next financial year to be one of its best. In a statement to investors released at a financial call, Take 2 teased that the 2018-19 financial year would be record breaking for it, led by the launch of Red Dead Redemption 2, and the launch of a brand new, highly anticipated game in one of Take 2’s biggest franchises.

“That said, we still expect fiscal 2018 to be a year of strong earnings and cash provided by operating activities for Take-Two, despite an unusually light release slate, driven by new releases of NBA 2K and WWE 2K, our robust catalog led by Grand Theft Auto, and innovative offerings designed to drive engagement and recurrent consumer spending,” Take 2 said. “Looking ahead to fiscal 2019, we expect to deliver both record Net Sales and record net cash provided by operating activities, in excess of $2.5 billion and $700 million, respectively, led by the launches of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 and a highly anticipated new title from one of 2K’s biggest franchises.”

Whatever could this new franchise be? It’s a big money spinner, which means we’re left with very few possibilities- Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, Borderlands, or Civilization. Civilization just had a new entry last year, so that’s out, and Rockstar is unlikely to release a new Red Dead and GTA both next year. So… Borderlands? We already know that’s in the work, so they are probably referring to that with this statement.

What do you think it is?

Take Two interactive, the folks who own 2K Games and Rockstar, have previously asserted their intent to support Nintendo with the upcoming Nintendo Switch. And now, in their latest quarterly financial earnings report, Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick reasserted the company’s intent to support the Switch in the long run, but noting that right now, he was not in a position to make any further, specific announcements.

“We’re excited about Switch we’re supporting Switch with NBA 2K18, we’ve said we’re supporting it long form,” he said. “We’ve said over and over again that when Nintendo comes to market you never want to count them out. So we’re excited about it, but the only thing we can announce is the basketball title.”

It’s entirely possible that he can’t get any more specific because the games Take 2 further has for development for Switch aren’t ready to be announced yet- such as that rumored L.A. Noire remaster. That said, given the history of third party support on Nintendo hardware, it’s not hard to understand why many may jump straight to the worst conclusion.

[via Nintendo Everything]

Grand Theft Auto 5’s release date reveal delay is something that is not only annoying to many people out there, but Take 2 has not been able to say anything even though it has been in development for over 4 years now.

They’ve released a bunch of screenshots to appease fans, but that’s not going to enough. There have been solid rumors that the game will miss this year.

Recently at the Take 2 investor meeting, Rockstar’s representative Dan Emerson mentioned that Borderlands 2 has been received well by critics and is the most pre-ordered game after GTA 4 and San Andreas. This is great news but they also mentioned that key titles have been delayed.

One of them is Bioshock Infinite which was delayed recently and the other could be obviously Grand Theft Auto 5. There is no way Rockstar is going to release the game this fiscal year considering their projections aren’t that high now.

“Sadly, GTA V was mentioned (Rockstar releasing screenshots and development is coming along), but of the key games talked about, it was the only one where a release date was not attached. This does suggest the game is likely not going to be hitting retail shelves  this side of March 31st 2013 when the financial year ends. Some have speculated a May 2013 release period which is more likely,” wrote Cramgaming.

There is still one batch of screenshots remaining.