In Take-Two’s latest financial report, CEO Strauss Zelnick makes some bold statements about the future of the games industry. As the industry reels from Sony’s controversial decision to stop manufacturing physical disc-based games,and to pivot to an ‘all-digital future’, Zelnick reckons we won’t only embrace digital games in the future but stream our games, too.
“With the advent of streaming – which we really do believe is around the corner in terms of having something that’s low latency, and really works well for consumers – machines that weren’t game machines before will become game machines,” Zeldnick said during Take-Two’s quarterly earnings call this morning (thanks, Kotaku).
“So, without regard to what happens in the console business, which is of consequence to us, of course, we see the overall install base as a practical matter growing materially. And if you believe in streaming, we really do – and I’m happy to put a timeline on it.”
Strauss thinks we’ll be in “commercial streaming mode” in three years, and explained that by “commercial streaming he meant a games streaming platform that has low latency and will work for the vast majority of customers (I am reading this as, essentially, a ‘plug and play’ streaming system that allows users to access games and play them with minimal barriers, and minimal fuss).
“[Commercial streaming] can [multiply the] effective install base by ten,” he continued. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to 10x our revenue, and we wouldn’t project that we would, because obviously your avid consumers already have access to video game machines. But I do think it creates great opportunity for titles that are broadly desirable even outside of core markets. And we do have titles like that, obviously.”
Given that Take-Two has only just revised its projected revenue for the 2027 fiscal year up to $8.2bn, it’s safe to say Zelnick knows the market well, and has gone on the record with a few observations about the state of the games industry: he remains skeptical of generative AI, a stance he took before we started to see the largely negative impact the tool has had on the industry.
But his comments make me wonder about the future of GTA 6. The game goes without a PC release date, but – given the strength of GTA 6’s pre-orders – we know there is exceptional demand for it. Will we see it arrive on some sort of streaming platform before we see a PC port? Does Zelnick know something we don’t know about the shape of the games industry in a few years’ time? Are Xbox Helix and the PS6 going to prioritise streaming over traditional media? Or is this just a C-suite exec speculating on where things are heading in a public way?
It could be that this statement doesn’t really have anything to do with GTA 6, though I find that doubtful. Take-Two is adept at maximising profit, whether that’s by taking advantage of platforms like PS Plus and Game Pass, or by making the software available on as many platforms as possible: more users equals more profit, generally speaking. It stands to reason that we’re being primed for a streaming future of some sort, but given the blowback to Sony’s announcement it’ll end physical game production, there’s bound to be some resistance before we get there.
