During Take-Two Interactive Software’s financial conference call for investors and analysts, Chief Executive Officer Strauss Zelnick talked about the next generation of consoles and streaming.
About the next-gen consoles, Zelnick mentioned that Take-two “certainly pays attention” to when new offerings and business models are coming and that informs their decision making around releases.
That being said, they “don’t really see the next-generation to be particularly disruptive” because the publisher is “pretty fluent in technology at this point.”
The last time there was a challenging console cycle transition it was the PS3 and Xbox 360 generation. That didn’t happen in the PS4 and Xbox One generation so Take-Two will be “Mindful” of the upcoming change, but it won’t be determining to what they do.
Zelnick also mentioned that the publisher is open-minded about subscription services. The publisher wants to be where the consumer is, but they also want to engage in what makes sense for their creatives and shareholders, which means that they need to find that “intersection” and that “may prove to be a little challenging” for subscriptions as people consume games differently than they do movies and TV.
The result remains to be seen, and Zelnick doesn’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that subscriptions will be as massive for games as they have proven to be for music and TV.
On the other hand, Take-Two is “very optimistic” about streaming technology. The notion of playing games on any device without needing a box and with low latency is “very compelling” if it can be delivered, and the folks at Google promised to deliver it in relatively short order with Stadia.
Conceptually, Take-Two is “a believer” in streaming services, but the business model needs to make sense for them.
If you want to read more about Take-Two Interactive Software’s financial results, you can read our dedicated article.
