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Take-Two’s Thin Release Schedule for Fiscal 2018 Wasn’t Intentional, Says CEO Strauss Zelnick

Now that Red Dead Redemption 2 has been delayed, Take-Two Interactive doesn’t have much to offer players in terms of new releases outside of its annual franchises. This seems to be a dry spell in comparison to last year, when the company’s 2K label alone released seven titles including Mafia III. However, the thin release schedule for fiscal 2018 wasn’t intentional, according to CEO Strauss Zelnick.

Speaking to Games Industry, the Take-Two boss revealed that the lack of major releases stems from a number of factors including company resources.

2K had a really good season this past year, but it was, for the company, still relatively thin. And it didn’t help that Battleborn wasn’t a big success. So part of it is the level of success, part of it is the schedule, and part of it is finding the human resources to actually take the intellectual property that we own and bring them to market. Those are an array of challenges, juxtaposed against the uncertainty of how long it takes to make a AAA title, which means we can find ourselves in fiscal 2018 with a much thinner schedule than we’d like. But it wasn’t intentional, and 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.

Zelnick stressed that he doesn’t believe in annualizing IPs with the exception of sports games – a stance he’s always held. He wants Take-Two to build a portfolio that allows the company to have a “great group of releases” each season. “Ideally, we will have one triple-A title every single year,” he continued.

Although Rockstar hasn’t released a new game since 2013, Grand Theft Auto V continues to be the highlight of Take-Two’s financial reports.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is now scheduled for release in Spring 2018.

[Source: Games Industry]

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