We’ve seen plenty of publishers trying their hand with day and date releases on subscription services (mostly Game Pass) for major titles in recent years, but the one major company that has steered completely away from that is Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of the likes of Rockstar Games and 2K. Time and again, Take-Two has insisted that that’s a business model that doesn’t make sense for its approach, and it doesn’t seem like that’ll be changing anytime soon.
Speaking recently with GamesIndustry, touching once again on the topic of Game Pass, when asked about what a major title like the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 releasing for Game Pass day and date will do to change consumer habits, he said he expects trends to shift towards subscriptions at least in the short term.
“I think that offering a frontline title with a premium price in a subscription service, day and date, will push consumers to that subscription service for at least a period of time,” he said.
That said, Zelnick says Take-Two still won’t be offering any of its premium, flagship titles via subscription services on the day of release, implying that he doesn’t believe that would be “rational”.
“No, it won’t affect our decisions,” he said. “Because our decisions are rational.”
Take-Two currently has multiple major titles in the pipeline, including Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto 6 and Max Payne 1 and 2 Remake (which is being developed by Remedy Entertainment), Firaxis Games’ Civilization 7, and rumoured titles such as Borderlands 4 and Mafia 4.
