Take-Two on GTA 6 review scores, PS5 price hike, 2K missteps and more

This week Take Two delivers strong financial results. Ubisoft warns investors of a tough year ahead and we spend most of this episode talking about Grand Theft Auto 6.
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Hello and welcome to the Game Business Show. In a moment I'll be welcoming Dan Dawkins onto the show. He is a leader at Future PLC behind the Future Game Show and also the co-host of the GTA 6:00 podcast show and newsletter. Dan and I will be going through an interview I just did with Strauss Zelnick and discussing the impact GTA 6 might have on the market and where things might go after the game is released. Before we get to that though, we have our news headlines and I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't mention the Game Business Live. So of course we're less than a two weeks away now from this event. It's coming happening on Monday, June 8th at the Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles. If you're a paying subscriber to the Game Business, first thank you for paying to subscribe to the Game Business, but also you can come to the event at no extra cost. It's included in your subscription, but you do have to register. I've been sending emails out to try and remind people about that.

It's also included in the Summer Game Fest industry ticket. So if you have an industry ticket to go attend Summer Game Fest on that Monday, you can also come to the Game Business Live, but again you have to register. Also tickets are available to buy. Reminder, we've got three speakers. So I will be speaking to Matthew Ball, who when we brought Matthew Ball on he was the chief famous analyst that he is. He's now the chief strategy officer at Xbox, so that's a bit of a surprise for me as as much as it is for you. Um he will be talking with me as our first speaker talking about the state of the market and and generally consoles and all sorts of things. Um then we've got Laura Miele. Um she is the EA Entertainment president. She oversees things like The Sims and Battlefield and all those single-player games that EA makes, Apex Legends and all sorts of big big titles. Laura's going to be talking to me about all sorts of different things about the way the market's heading and EA's view on that. And then finally, and I'm really excited about this, we've got Jason Rubin. Jason Rubin is the co-founder of Naughty Dog. He spent years at Meta. He was there at the end of THQ trying to save it. And we've got a wonderful story there talking

about his career. We've got a load of special guests as part of that. As I say, that's all on June 8th. We're recording them all. We will be putting them out as episodes of the Game Business Show. But if you can be there, it should be really good. There'll be food and drink and and well, biscuits and and cups of tea and coffee. But it'll be lovely to have you there. Um I'm really looking forward to it. Tickets are still available. They are going. Um we will be sold out. Um and so uh yes, please do come and join us there. But let's get to the actual news. News that's going on in the actual video games industry. And first of all, cuz we're going to come back to Take-Two in a moment with our GTA conversation. But Take-Two released its financial results for the year. And there was a 19% increase in both net revenue and net bookings for its 2026 financial year. Incredibly, they That's without a GTA new GTA game. They expect another 20% growth in the next financial year. Again, that's because of GTA. The firm reported that mobile made up 50% of its net revenue for the year with consoles accounting for just 11%. The remaining 39% was attributed to PC and other. Other, I assume, is VR and stuff like that. Anyway, NBA 2K was a big hit with revenue up 10%. And the game has shipped

10 million units. The sales did slow down in the last quarter, but that's cuz they did so well in the quarter before. Zynga also achieved its highest level of net bookings since Take-Two bought the company in 2022. And of course, this is kind of the norm now. GTA Online once again exceeded expectations, as did Red Dead Redemption 2. These games always seem to exceed expectations. Red Dead Redemption 2 had its best sales year outside of its launch. The game has now sold 85 million copies worldwide. We're going to talk a lot about GTA and a little bit about Red Dead Redemption when Dan Dawkins comes on in just a moment. Um Take-Two's financials are great. Ubisoft's financials, not so much. Uh Ubisoft reported a sharp 21.8% decline in revenue and a 17.4% drop in net bookings for its 2025-2026 financial year. The firm also warned that its next financial year will be a low point in terms of free cash flow. This is due to restructuring costs and a softer release slate. Their next big game is the remake of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, It should do really well, but it's and it's coming out in the summer. Ubisoft says it will deliver a strong rebound in the following financial years, so it's 2027-2028 financial year.

The company said that new games in the Far Cry, Assassin's Creed, and Ghost Recon series will launch before April 2029. So, we've got some big games coming, just not imminently. The news follows the cancellation, of course, of six Ubisoft games and the latest seven others, which was announced earlier this year, alongside plans for significant cost reductions across the organization. So, the Ubisoft turnaround is going to take some time. This actually broke just as we recorded the episode uh last week. It's the US sales data. Tom Clancy's Live a Living the Dream, that's a Nintendo Switch game, was the best-selling game of April in the US with over $41 million in physical and projected digital spending, according to Circana. Circana is changing how it's doing its charts. This is the first attempt at that and covers the whole market. It's not just games that that are submitted to the panel. The Nintendo game debuted at number nine in the best-selling game of 2026 so far. Capcom's Pragmata was the second best-selling game of April. It was number one on PS5, number two on PC, and number three on Xbox, and was in the top 15 on Nintendo Switch too. So, it wasn't a significant platform for the game. Brilliant game, by the way. Nintendo Switch 2 was the best-selling console of the month. Overall, US spending on games

and hardware in April was up 3% year-on-year to $4.3 billion. So, growth is still continuing in the US games market. A couple of smaller stories. Epic Games has announced Unreal Engine 6, which will be used to power the next era of Rocket League. Uh the reveal was made during the Rocket League Paris Major last weekend. Very little else has been shown about it apart from static purple logo. Bungie is ending updates to its popular shooter Destiny 2 and will now focus on developing new games. I think there's a bit of grief from certain players around Destiny 2. And the studio confirmed that its final live service content update will take place on June 9th. Bungie launched the extraction shooter Marathon in March. Obviously, that's going to take some of their focus. So, maybe hey, maybe it's time for Destiny 3. This is a weird story. Microsoft has agreed to pay $250 million to settle a 2022 class action lawsuit filed by Swedish pension fund AB 7, which contested Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The lawsuit accused CEO Bobby Kotick of rushing the sale and depriving shareholders of a better stock price. It's all around this the acquisition being made against Bobby. I

I'm surprised they settled on this. It seemed like a bit of a mad lawsuit to me, but Microsoft settled for it. Everyone seems happy everyone is moving on. There's a couple of new studios formed and we don't always cover them because it happens a lot, but there is a new studio formed by former Housemarque game director Harry Krueger. He last worked on the 2021 game Returnal. This new studio is based in Helsinki. It's a small team and it will focus on fast iteration, sustainable growth, and craftsmanship. It's working on a new IP for PC and console. Summer Game Fest is nearly upon us. There's a bit of excitement building around it and a PlayStation State of Play showcase has been announced. It will happen June 2nd, 2026, so just before the Summer Game Fest kickoff event on June 5th. It will feature the upcoming Marvel's Wolverine game, which is developed by Insomniac, uh, one of one of Sony's most prolific and successful game studios. And finally, I've got three small stories here. Indie event BitSummit set a new attendance record last weekend with 68,208 visitors, rise of 17% year-on-year. The annual event took place in Kyoto, in Japan, with an industry day on May 22nd

and public days on May 23rd and 24th. It's really grown that event. It's done very, very well. I've not been myself, but I know lots of people that think it's brilliant. So, well done to the BitSummit team. Game services specialist Room 8 Group has appointed Joanita Jord as its CEO. She She spent places like NBC Universal and she was She had leadership roles at Monks and Publicis Group. She replaces Anna Kozlova, who left the role after 7 years last month. And finally, the Game Maker Sketchbook has announced the selections for its fifth annual showcase. This is a project that shows the artistry in the interactive entertainment. It's sort of run by AIAS, that's the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. Iam8bit and 47 Communications. This year's selections are highlights concept art, um, environment art, character designs, and storyboards from the likes of Borderlands 4, Monument Valley C, Pragmata, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. The jury panel sort of, you know, judges these things, they select these things, and the works are available in the Game Maker's Sketchbook online gallery and will be exhibited at Summer Game Fest Play Days from June 6th to June 8th in Los Angeles, California. And they tend

to be made available on the IL8 bit website, too. That's the news, but we're about now to talk about Grand Theft Auto 6. And to help me do that, I'm now joined by Dan Dawkins. He is the content director of the Future Games Show, but more importantly, one half of the GTA 6:00 Show. Is that got that right, GTA 6:00?
Yeah, GTA 6:00 was 5:00.
Yeah. So, how long's that been going now?
God, we started GTA 5:00 in, I want to say late 2011, 2012. Oh my god, it was a good 18 months before the launch of GTA 5. And it was launched as purely, uh, yeah, like a crazy bet to follow a passion. Hmm. I I was writing, editing magazines at that stage and doing a lot of kind of like quasi-scientific sleuthing work around games. Like my other obsession is Metal Gear Solid, and I did a lot of work with that community trying to guess what Metal Gear Solid 4 and 5 would be. Then we thought, let's translate some of that

to the biggest game in the world, GTA 5. So, you know, then we began doing essentially, it it was launched within our company. I work as part of Future PLC, you know, big brand, publicly facing company. We launched it like a Black Ops project, where we didn't tell anyone we were doing it. I used to do that. I don't think anyone would have signed it off. And we didn't really tell anyone about it until it was big enough to be visible, but also too big to stop. Um, so, and it you know, and I think to this day, it's probably still like the highest engagement in terms of, you know, people coming and engaging and liking and everything. One of biggest engagement things that Future does.
Oh, wow. I am when I was at Games Industry Days, I launched Best Place to Work Awards one year. And I did it sort of I didn't tell anyone about it. Any money I spent was money that I got by sponsorship. And the following year, it'd been so successful, the following year we did it in a proper event, proper venue. My boss, Simon Maxwell, at the time, he he he he called me to a meeting. He said, "Chris, do you have an event on tomorrow?" I've been running it

for 2 years at that point.
[laughter]
It's a similar similar story, really. We'll all come back to GTA cuz really is the topic of today's show, but you're also doing Future Games Show, which is on Saturday, June 6th. Have I got that right?
That's right. So, yeah, 8:00 p.m. BST, Saturday, June 6th. Yeah, join us for 40 amazing game trailers. 40 40-ish. I haven't counted today. 40-ish game trailers hosted by Troy Baker and Alex Wilton Regan. He's great. I like Troy. Troy, if you're watching, respect to you. Consummate professional.
He tells me he does. I ran into the BAFTAs and he said he'd been watching, but I don't know if he just meant he watched this one.
The best one.
Yeah.
Yeah. Troy's wonderful. We've worked with loads of great voice talent, and it's always really fun, I think, bringing people together who may not normally be in the same space. Like, the alternate flip, we obviously can't say this, but the alternate flip is it's Indiana Jones and Lara Croft together at

last.
Oh, yeah. I see what you did there. I didn't even pick up on that. Oh, good.
Yeah. And and obviously we can't go out and say that, but they are the actors. So, it's quite fun, I think, bringing those worlds together. Great chemistry. It's It's really fun. And it's been fun for me working with people, for example, like the voice of Solid Snake, David Hayter. It's like so you know, and and you do what everyone does. You get him to say something ridiculous just cuz you can. And he probably dies a little inside, but it you know, for you it's a magical moment.
It must be Is it chaos though right now cuz you're what? It's just over a week away. And need to ask anymore, do I?
Yeah, like we uh we're a week away from the show, but I think in terms of just making the show, we're probably like 2 3 days away. Like we we're getting to the point where we send the show off for translation. So, yeah, these are the sharp hours. So, I think after this call, I'll grab a sandwich, and then I'll be watching the entire edit and sharing notes with the team, and that's where we sort of go, this has to change, this we can leave, this is fine. You know, all the stuff

you the fun about creating a big project, really.
Well, let's talk GTA, which is what we're about. Um now, it you must be quite easy to fill the 6:00 show now because of the amount of Strauss Zelnick interviews that have been doing the rounds over the last two and a bit months. Because he was at Icon, then he did his and he did a load of media around there. And he was he's been appearing on podcasts. He was on a podcast I'm trying to remember the name of the podcast I saw him on this week where he talked about how he took over Take-Two, which I thought was fascinating. And we just had the financial results, and he's done a bunch of press around that. So, it's it's always good trying to translate what he Cuz obviously he doesn't say too much because you know he leaves that to Rockstar, but he says he always says something. He was on our show two months ago, two and a bit months ago, and last week he did the financial results, and to give you a bit of insider baseball, I guess, a bit like how the sausage is made. But um Strauss and other companies do it as well, they make themselves available to certain press every quarter, every financial quarter. And it's a bit of a fun game. Strauss is really good at this because if you get in for 30 minutes or an hour or whatever, he will answer your questions honestly and fully, he'll go in depth on

those answers. When you've got him on a 5-to-10-minute window in a investor call, he will answer your questions quickly, all right? It'll be succinct, and he'll get to them. Sometimes you feel like he hasn't quite answered it as much as you'd like him to, but but that's almost the game. You've got to go in there, you know other journalists are doing the same thing. So, you've all got to It's a it's a bit fun. And I always try and compete and go, right, can I get something interesting, and can I get something out quicker than everyone else. But this week I didn't do that. I did do my interview and I just sat on it for a week and I've got it I've got some quotes here for you Dan.
Hey, good fun.
TA it's I mean it's not It's it is it is short sharp answers during investical but it is sound it good material for you?
On one hand what he says is corporate straight bats the answer you would expect. But within that I'm sort of laughing as I say this because I on one hand I'm like at the heart of a super quasi conspiratorial Mulder and Scully style GTA show where

we're constantly looking for patterns in the tea leaves.
Yeah.
On the other like my actual job is in the games industry. I've got you know, we've done this kind of thing before. We know how it works. So it's quite playful to sort of live between those two worlds. I think you know, a lot of what he does you could dismiss as nothing burgers but if you're like a fan of the genre and you look at the way he constructs certain sentences or the phrases he use there's more information there than some realize.
Yeah.
And I think that's quite fun and I think similar to what you said you you might hear what he said and not think anything was said but you go back through it and go oh actually
Yeah.
You could see that as a tell about this.
For someone who does do a lot of interviews the fact that sometimes he might say something he doesn't say anything by accident. And I think that's that's the the thing about it. Even if you even if it doesn't seem like something anything you might be as you say. So there's people who disagree with me at this time you might have an opinion on this. I thought if they're going to delay it

again they would have done it at this financials. That was my expectation. Now I know Rockstar ultimately have the final call on that. I thought that is when we'll get it and I thought if if it gets through the full year financials November 19th is locked on. If I'm if I'm in the games industry and I'm going can I release in November? No is my answer to you now. However, other people I've spoken to in this industry have told me I still think a chance of a delay." What's your What's your take?
I think my take is like, do I believe that Strauss Zelnick and Take-Two believes it's coming out on November 19th? Yes. I think if you look at the last earnings call, like you said, I think he's a very deliberate communicator. And the language has changed from like release window and that kind of softer, more ambiguous language to the last earnings call, if you include the analyst questions, I think it's somewhere between six to eight times the words November 19th were said out loud, which seems ridiculous to pick up on, but I see it as someone who's like a a fan of the Strauss Zelnick genre, that's

a really deliberate thing. And he wouldn't be out there saying that were he not having extremely high confidence in that. And like you, working in the industry, you know that even a release that's six months away, which we've just passed for GTA, there's a lot of wheels that have already had to go into motion. What I would basically say is I believe Take-Two believes it's coming out at that time. It's not impossible that Rockstar could say stop the bus with, let's say, four months to go, three months to go, but I really think at that stage it's got to be something catastrophic. Yeah. And all the signals to me right now are this is happening. Strap yourself in. And I agree with you. It's so market significant. This was the investor call to flush that out if it was going to be the case. The next investor call is three months away, then it's two and a half months to the release of the game. If they're delaying at that stage, that is, you know, wild wild.
What I would say is that, okay, you don't have to have a completely finished

game three months from launch anymore, but you do still need to have something that you can put on a disc and ship out to people. And I like to think they would know by now if they're going to hit that. Um but we'll um it's a big complicated game, so I'm not a game developer. I'm pretty sure if I'm Microsoft going, "Where should I put Fable?" If I'm, you know, Remedy thinking, "Where should I put Control Resident?" I'm like, "Not November." Right? You know, I I I I I think I think if you were hoping that might move or were just keeping an eye on if it might move, I I wouldn't be banking on that anymore. Well, here's the thing. And Dan, you were talking about this on social media around the budget of GTA 6 and and how much it needs to make and all this kind of stuff. I don't actually I do care, but I think it's I think it's sort of it's a fun to conversation. Um it's worth noting that G- Grand Theft Auto made last year half a billion dollars, and that's from sales of GTA 5, Definitive Edition, and obviously GTA Online will be the bulk of that. But that's because GTA 5 was such a mega cultural moment, and it's still, in many

ways, even 13 years on, one of the greatest games, you know, one of the pinnacle of video games. Some modern games don't match what that game has did. And I think that's really important. Almost the budget, even though the game's going to make its money back.
[laughter]
Right?
Yeah.
You know, Rockstar made made more money in the years it's taken them to make GTA than GTA's cost them to make. So, for me, what's important is the cultural impact of this. Can it lift all boats? And I asked a very soft question to Strauss around this cuz this um and he said, "When entertainment gets highly successful, it does have a cultural impact. And undoubtedly, many of our properties have resonance with the wider culture. You're right, that is something we seek to do." Now, that is a nothing burger. But it For me, that's the important bit of this this GTA journey is that it creates that mega moment. And I'm interested, you've got probably more metrics than me working from the consumer media from the consumer side of things. But the the buzz around this, I don't think I've ever seen anything like it in entertainment. I don't think there's anything in books or in movies

that has this groundswell of sort of anticipation and being discussed. I I the fun story, a couple of years ago, I went on the Dermot O'Leary Radio 2 show. Wasn't about video games, it was They had a called inappropriate lullabies, right? And it was about basically songs that you play to your kids that would got them to sleep. And by the way, my the song that used to get my youngest my eldest to sleep was the lonely this Christmas by Mud, which is a very very very very depressing song. And it's something that we had to play all year round. So, in the height of summer, he would fall asleep to lonely this Christmas by Mud cuz it don't I don't know what it was about that. But, so that I was on for that. And of course, Dermot's team does a bit of recky, you know, who are you? What do you do for a living? And as soon as he found out I was a games journalist, I got six questions from Dermot about GTA 6 and nothing else. Like, he didn't ask me anything about my life or my kids or my family at all. He just wanted to know about Grand Theft Auto. I For me, that speaks to this, how big this moment might be for for entertainment, for culture. Um not a question, but I you've you live it. You know, it's weird cuz I get so lost in the weed of the financials and all

the day-to-day. I sometimes forget about culturally this is such a moment. And like, to speak to that impact, right? Like, you see videos go on social media. Like, you'll see oh, it's famous, you know, world's best striker, Erling Haaland, sat in his amazing house talking to social media saying, of anything in the world he could do, and this is a guy who's won the Champions League, he can't wait for the release of Grand Theft Auto 6. It's that big a moment that anyone who's anyone who's even interested in video games has eyes on this release. And you know, and I could talk for this honestly for hours. And I think it's, you know, I think a lot of it goes to Rockstar's roots in coming from the entire industry, I guess, from a different lens, being essentially from the music world. And what particularly what GTA 3 did, that intersection of like the first sort of fully explorable 3D open world that gave you this freedom or illusion of freedom intersected with the the popular soundtrack, which got, you know, Vice

City went to another level. Like, when you step on a motorbike and it's literally Billie Jean from Michael Jackson playing, that burns that burns into people's psyches. And and it's I think it's that sort of cultural smash that GTA does so well that elevates it above anything else. This is the apex of of what people can make given essentially an unlimited budget to create an interactive experience. And there's a fascination, maybe a jealousy, I don't know what you call it, right? About that happening. But you just want to know uh you know, what are these wizards at Rockstar going to cook up, right? And and for me, and this is part of the thing, you know, well, I write a newsletter every week and I say loads of it gets lost in the weeds. We used to run a section in the newsletter called uh that thing that magic, which is the words that Michael speaks at the start of GTA V's uh first trailer, where they were almost referencing old Hollywood and he goes, "Why did I move here? I guess it was the weather. That thing, that magic." And for me, that's that's Rockstar's games.

They're like this this hark to old Hollywood, this idea of, you know, Willy Wonka, the magician behind the curtain. What are those wizards at Rockstar North cooking up? And I think for that reason, all eyes are on it. And and I you know, it's I think it's easy to forget how exciting that is in all the most the talk of when is trailer three, what Strauss said now or not said now. At the heart of it is this potentially amazing video game.
Yeah, and and I'll come back to what I think the industry should be thinking about around this, but um I asked Strauss about the critical reviews. Cuz here's the thing, criticism has shifted in the years since GTA uh V, and I'm interested you know, I've heard the stories, Dan, and you experienced it of the former [laughter] uh Rockstar PR Hamish having to call up journalists, "Why did you only give it a nine?" They really really cared about what people thought about their games, basically. Really mattered to them. So, I was interested to know that I was like, you know, Strauss isn't Rockstar, but I asked him like, "How important are

the are critical reviews still really important?" He went, "Of course." And then I said, "In the same way as they always have been?" And he went, "Yeah." I said, "As much as it has been in the past?" He went, "In the same way as it has been in the past." Rockstar scores are typically in the mid-90s, sometimes high-90s. Not many games can say that, and that's a reflection on Rockstar's commitment to quality. And here's the thing, um I'm worried that Rockstar might get a nasty surprise with the reviews. Not because I don't think they're going to be amazing, is I think they are. But I think the industry shifted a bit in that people will give uh there were lots of different opinions now on things cuz the industry's got wider, you've got more voices, got more people with different perspectives and different analysis. I'm sure someone will rate the game down because of the union situation that Rockstar's facing. I'm sure there'll be somebody in that space that will have issue with that, and that's their opinion and feelings around the game as it relate in relation to what's happening in the real world. There might be somebody that doesn't like violence that ends up reviewing the game. I don't know. So, I think they might end up finding themselves with a few scores that that wouldn't have happened in the past.

That's my feeling. You you work in the in the media world. Yeah, and no nobody can tell uh like ultimately how good is this game? Where will it sit in the all-time chart? Is there a risk that it's genuinely a disappointment? But I think you you've hit the exactly the nail on the head. We are 13 years past the release of GTA V. The media culture environment is completely transformed. And at that point in time, let's say 2013, it was easier, not not, you know, easier to handpick the journalist you wanted to be reviewing that game ahead of time. You know, I was one of those journalists, you know, I I got essentially taken on deluxe house arrest to play all of the GTAs. Like including I I got got a memory of playing uh Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas uh whilst under house arrest in a very posh hotel in Chelsea by the harbor. And like PR sitting with me for like 12 hours of the day and like I think I was at the point of being the

first person in the world outside Rockstar to finish GTA San Andreas. Uh and spoilers, I died in the flames in the last mission. And I turned to the PR guy and and he could see almost tears in his eyes and he went, "I've got to go home. I've got to be up in 2 hours. We can't go again." I was like, "Oh, I was so close." And I think but to go back to the idea of the macro environment, that there's people social media is so noisy and there's people who make it Someone has to be first to say the thing you like is rubbish, right? And and someone will do that. And that like all narratives are available at one style about everything. And it's slightly exhausting and I do agree Rockstar are going to get from the gate some dissenting voices. Does that mean the game is any more or less brilliant? I don't know.
No.
But there's going to be dissenting voices.
Strauss says it's something that's very important to him. I don't think it matters as much either. Like I'm not saying that criticism doesn't have a role to play, but if you look at the any data that comes out from any like motivating factors behind why people buy a game, it is in the lower part of the

motivating factors behind buying a game. I think those use even look at sort of Crimson Desert. Didn't get great reviews. Didn't get terrible ones, didn't get great ones, but it it did incredibly well and the users are very satisfied with it. And then of course they managed to update it and improve it and maybe it would have got a different score if it was rated today, but the way gamers are I don't I don't I don't even think in hindsight Yeah, there's been games that got rave reviews. In hindsight we're probably going, "Yeah, was it a cultural moment? Was it that Was it that special?" And there's games that sort of got eights and sevens and that you go look back on and go is now seen as, you know, icons of the industry. Again, this isn't necessarily a comment on criticism not being relevant. I just don't think it's the main thing to concern about around GTA. I I don't think a 94 Metacritic is going to be an indicator of the impact this will have.
No, I I look I I completely agree and in fact we we talked about this probably while on air and I think my answer to the question was, "Does it matter? Yes and no. I think ultimately it won't derail the success of this game. It would have to be like critically mauled unanimously to I think to have any

impact on its uh you know, it's all business prospects. And it just seems so improbable. You're not talking about some rookie studio that never made a game.
No.
Every single one of their quadruple A releases has been a 90% plus, you know, standard bearer. It feels hard to fathom that's not the case.
Yeah.
But whether then it's a case of heightened expectations readying people to go, it's only a HD version of GTA V with the mechanics of X. You know, but there'll be people, you know, looking for
Yeah. Perhaps the older heck Sam Houser of Rockstar can sort It's all right. It's all right if it's an 89. It doesn't mean It doesn't mean it wouldn't have been a 94.
says GTA VI will get 89. Don't say that.
No, I'd [laughter] say nothing wrong with an 89. Resident Evil Requiem 89, I thought was
a masterpiece.
Um Um So, obviously from an industry point of view, this is where things matter is what is from my point my perspective is what will GTA do to the market? And my

expectation is it's going to do a huge amount for the market. I think it'll drive a lot of console sales. I think it's going to get a lot of lapsed people people that may have I've got people in my life, Danny, you must do as well, who um probably the last console they owned was an Xbox 360 and PS3 with GTA V, right? And they are watching this. But we had Matt Piscatella from Circana on the show um not so long ago and he talked about how there's going to be a bit of a price shock for customers when they come in and go, "Oh, I want a GTA VI. Uh what console should I get? Is it a PS5? How much?" Right, you know, it's a how much for this thing? And I I asked Strauss about this. I actually asked him about this in the last interview I did with him. And um he was like, "I'm not worried about it." Since then the PS5 price has gone up and the Switch 2 price has gone up. And this time he said, "I'm sure the price increases will have some influence and I don't think it will be a positive one." I do think consumers remain highly interested in interactive entertainment and in the consoles that delivers that entertainment. At that point, Laney Goldstein, who doesn't normally add anything in these interviews, but I know she's there.

She replied She joined in to we do think GTA 6 will drive console sales, which is I mean, again, stating the obvious here. I think it will as well. And this is where I think from a consumer I think this is why this is interesting because there will be parents looking to justify this. There'll be moms and dads that are going, "I want GTA 6. Let's get a console for Christmas for the family or whatever." And I made a joke to Sony a couple of years ago now, and it I say joke, I was kind of being serious, although it'd never get it through the age rating body, that what they should do is make a hardware bundle with GTA 6 and like Astro Bot. And here or or guess maybe And then because you go, "Right, here's here's your game, and here's the game the children can play on Christmas morning that's absolutely fine." Again, the age rating body will have all manner of sorts of issues with that, I'm sure. But I do think it will have a really big moment. And And I know that it November's been wiped off the calendar and probably the start December as well for a lot of the games industry, but if I'm 007 First Light, if I'm LEGO Batman, we're buying this console for us, but we'd like to get something for the kids. Well, LEGO Batman's a great

thing. Black Friday's the week after GTA 6 launches. You go, "Right, let's put that in a in a sale and a promotion. 007 First Light might be everyone's Oh, I could get that game as well. It's a bit GTA-ish, and maybe that'll appeal." I think of things like if you are somebody that had last GTA game you played was the last GTA game, which was in 2013, it's quite a good year for those sort of more nostalgic players. There's a new Tomb Raider or a remake of Tomb Raider. There's Resident Evil. There's There's a Bond game. Like there's loads of stuff that sort of appeal would speak to that sort of more perhaps older audience of players. So I think there's a great opportunity for the industry here. I think there'll be a halo effect. People There'll be more hardware, more people engaging in games, people dusting off their consoles maybe. And that's a wonderful opportunity for the rest of the business to go we've got games too. Here they are half price whatever the price is jump in. I think so and I guess I guess it's going to have a huge impact on the media as well right down.
Yeah, I mean there's there's lots of angles there like long story short. Yes, I think this is a net good for the

industry. It's a look at me moment for all the video games. I'm the same I've got lots of friends some are more engaged with gaming than others all of them were aware of GTA GTA and it's it's the fact it's coming out. A lot of them wouldn't have already bought Xboxes or PS5s. This is the moment you would step in and enter and it it may be the only game you buy or as you say it's the game you buy and you go well now I've got the console I'll get you know my son my daughter whoever will get them this game will get them that game. I really enjoyed GTA let's try double 07. I agree with all of that as a thesis. I think this should be within the industry. We should see this as a net good. This is what Strauss Zelnick always says of course he would. I mean if you've asked a detective is a net good. Like for me I look at it as something like in cinema where you'll get it's a James Cameron film. He's he's bringing 3D to the cinemas behold what cinema can do how it can move you as a technical moment like a Christopher Nolan movie it's an event right and it just gets focused on the medium in a way it hasn't been and let's be really clear

I don't know how you feel about that I'm sure lots of people listening will agree or disagree. I think we've lived through a If you really zoom out of the industry and some people would argue this doesn't matter. The the technical level of change between consoles is not what it was. You are not getting the same level of graphically which matters I think because some people look and go oh wow people look real now or you know that kind of like look at how the graphics have improved. I think that shouldn't be undervalued. And I think a lot of people have lived through what's been almost like a Groundhog generation. Of of a lot of the key releases were the key releases last time around. And I don't want to start calling games out necessarily, but I think you know what I mean. Right, we've we've lived through a very iterative period in history, I would argue, right? And there's loads of exceptions to that rule, loads of brilliant inventive games, but in terms of the mainstream view, I think I think video games have looked fairly stagnant. And I think it will take something like GTA and look, you know, we again, we don't

even know how it really looks, right? We've seen the trailers, they say they're using in-game footage. is when it's up on plasmas in shops, stores, in your friend's house, that's is going to stop people in their tracks and go, "Huh, wow, I'm in." And you know, and that actually harks to me of like, why I even got into video games. I remember going round a friend's house who had a Commodore 64, I had a Spectrum, [clears throat] and the Commodore 64 had color graphics, right? And I was like, "This is impossible." And listen to the sound, and this was Commando, I don't know if you remember that on the Commodore 64. And just that technical leap up, it it blew my tiny mind. This game has the potential to do that for a whole sort of perimeter generation of people who are lapsed gamers or maybe not gamers, and I think that's why we should all be really excited about it. Assuming it delivers, right? Of course.
Yeah, and I think there's a wonderful opportunity for the industry and the only cuz this year is such a strong year for triple-A release, it's those sort of mainstream games that GTA fit into. I

think it's a good chance. Look, what I will say this, I said this during COVID as well, when loads of gamers came in for COVID. I'm not saying GTA's going to have a COVID level impact, but but like but but when when that happened, I did say and in fact a few people commented on it that we can't expect everybody who came who's who's booted up their console, come back to consoles or or PC game, PC game, whatever, come back to gaming or new to gaming to stay in this space once we can go back outside again, right? We can't expect people to hang around. What will be key for the industry is if they can keep some of those people around. Whether those people who who originally didn't play any games at all, can we keep them playing games? Not as much as they were during COVID, but can the games industry do that? It's not about matching the COVID numbers, it's about beating the numbers that happened before COVID. And I think that's the thing with GTA 6. I think there will be people that come in that haven't played a game for a long, long time. What can we as an industry do? What What the rest not on Rockstar, it's on the rest of the industry to go how can we um

you know, get them to play Bond or or Lego Batman or whatever. You can go any further than Call of Duty, whatever. Um Fortnite. What can we do to say, "Hey, you like this. Maybe play this." And I think that's on the platform holders, on the media as well. And look, I don't next Christmas, Christmas 2020 um uh what year are we in? 2027 won't won't be won't be as big as Christmas 2026, but can it be a decent size bigger than Christmas 2025? And I think that's got to be the goal rather than and I and I think there's not I think there's an opportunity. I do. One of the questions I asked Strauss, because it this is comes from the fact that he's doing a lot of interviews at the moment, right? And just you know, he seems to be doing a heck of a tour. And he's 68, right? So, I'm part of my brain was going, "Is this is this a farewell tour for Strauss Zelnick?" Like just just a speculation in my mind. So, I asked him if I didn't ask him that question, he was never going to answer that. Um but I I I asked him if he thought that we're going to see a lot of people leave, cuz people

have been working on this game for 10 years. This is going to be the pinnacle of entertainment when it launches. You've got that game out. What is the it does whatever it does. Should we expect people, whether it's Strauss or anyone at the Rockstar, to go, "Right, that's done. See you later. We're off." And his response was actually was very forthright. He said, "We don't see that in our company. We have a very low attrition rate at Rockstar. Take-Two's overall attrition rate is about half that of the industry average. And we have a lot of work to do after the launch of GTA 6 and I have no reason to believe they'll see in any changes in the competition of the team here. Um so, no, he says, but I don't know. I I there comes a point when I guess you might just go it doesn't get better than this. I don't know.
Yeah, I I agree and I think because of the huge cycles between GTA games, like if you think in the 13 years since GTA 5 to GTA 6, they've actually had a huge churn in terms of some of the you know, Rockstar wasn't the most visible in terms of public figures, but you had Dan Houser,

like lead writer on every game up until a certain point. Now, Dan's actually now been gone for quite a long time, but he was a really key figurehead and as much as they would give interviews, Dan would give interviews. It always felt like whether it was true and and Dan's done a lot of press now. He did a really good talk on the Lex Fridman show that was really really revealing, I thought. But essentially for creative who's been so influential but yet so well paid for over 20 years and to suddenly come out and really open up about the process, I thought that was so interesting and it really did feel like a lot of it he was out there on his own doing a lot of this stuff. He did say at the same time, it's not just me, it's not just me, of course, right? But in terms of the writing and the genesis and the idea when someone like that leaves, that's a shift. Even when someone like and I remember going to see GTA online, I think we were the first people to see GTA online and being taken into Rockstar North and taken into Leslie Benzies' office. And Leslie Benzies' office was and you

know, I don't know what that office is like now. Leslie Benzies isn't there anymore, but they were honestly, it was like being in an art gallery, but for screens. As far as the eye could see was screens with charts, reports, bugs squished, graphs, charts. It It was like something out of a surveillance movie. You know, you just you couldn't believe it.
Wow.
And and again, you know, people who work there would have a different view to me potentially, but it just felt like this degree of like authorship and this process would change with a different figurehead. And I just wonder, you know, if a few key people leave and who knows what happened to strauss. I didn't I can't believe he's 60, yeah. He's looking great, right?
I know.
Looking so good. I'm 40, looks way better than I do.
[laughter]
So, yeah, maybe we need to release a GTA 6. If he leaves, that's seismic because those key figures in a company, it subtly changes the trajectory and the leadership and things well. And I I look at it very much as an analog for again,

apologies for people who don't follow this. Um like a football manager leaving. You know, I'm a big Manchester United fan. Half people will switch off as I say that, but like when Sir Alex Ferguson, our legendary manager who was there for 20 years left and at the same time like the managing director who worked with him left, that did irreparable damage to the culture of Manchester United cuz so much of it was bound up in those two people. So, again, I'm not saying this is going to happen with the GTA 6, but a few figureheads were they to move on either because they felt it was their time and they Dan Houser said this, he almost felt he couldn't do another one because you're taking so much out of yourself, right? And you you you you look at other big creatives like uh Cory Barlog when he launched the first God of War, I think he's spoken I hope I'm not misquoting him, spoken quite openly about the toll that took on him. It's so hard to make a video game and I say that as someone who doesn't make video games. I make much smaller scale things and I often say in silent contemplation going, this is

really hard. I cannot imagine what that's like with those budgets, with those levels of staffing and the complication of cascading decisions that takes a toll on people.
Yeah. Also, there comes a time you can't do it forever. Um it's interesting though, I doing preparation for this Jason Rubin talk that I'm doing at the Game Business Live. And it's a really interesting story of someone who really handled a transition right. Right, cuz Naughty Dog for 20 years was Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin. Like, they were the creative directors, they created Crash Bandicoot, they're behind Jak and Daxter, they built that studio. Um they were they were the studio. And then when the book they really transitioned it very well by bringing in people Evan Wells, those sort of people to take over from them in a very very well-managed transition which enabled Naughty Dog to actually go to actually build on what they did and go even further. So, you know, it doesn't necessarily mean that change, but it just I wouldn't be surprised if we do see as you pointed out Dan Houser and Leslie Benzies didn't leave like a day after GTA V. It was years later and they took some time off as well. And

they obviously they will have an online component or some online element to GTA VI. There's the PC version to come. There's more to be done. And this is the thing that Strauss says, you know, we're not finished on November 19th. Like, it's we've got more to go. So, it might might not be you know, November 20th everyone's resignation letters come in, but I wouldn't be surprised if I actually do wonder if we'll ever get anything like GTA again. Cuz the industry shift AAA industry shifting now in the market. You've got two things happening. You've got the indie space going, "Oh, we can launching hits and going, now we have a bit more money, we can make bigger sequels." Some of them are, some of them are sticking with the budgets they are on. And you've got these big AAA companies going, "Hey, can we do something a bit more focused, make something a bit faster, and therefore short smaller budgets, more realistic budgets?" And I do wonder if and I know Rockstar will probably always make games like this, but I do wonder if we'll ever see anything if this is the last of the great blockbusters for video games.
Yeah, I I got into it kind of well, I mean, this is obviously surprising to anyone. I got into an argument with someone on Twitter, right? Of course, that's the the nature of being on those

mediums. Yeah. Well, I I said I think it's conceivable this will be the last expensive game of its time. Uh if you think this has taken 13 years end to end, of which and they said this publicly, active development began in sort of late 2019-2020. So, that's still 6 years of active development, thousands of people working. You could debate the cost endlessly. It's almost certainly going to be the most expensive entertainment product of all time. By By whichever way you argue the metrics, right? It's phenomenal, the cost involved. Then at the same time, you've got people like the ex-Rockstar technical director, Obbe Vermeij, um who's been quite public about talking about his time at Rockstar, which is going back to the sort of Vice City, San Andreas era. But, he's come out and said he thinks this will be like the last GTA to cost this much money. And that's a a result of the I guess those two things, where one is games are too expensive to make. Is this sustainable? This has been the forever

question in games for the last dec- decade, right? Decade beyond. And on the other hand, we're we're staring at a technology that everyone's talking about that in theory could make this thing easier. But, people sort of a lot of people seem to hate it, and that's AI. Um and but, you know, I I think Strauss has talked about that really openly, and he did on the last earnings call, where he said like AI's ability to speed up the asset generation process is huge. And he talked about some experiments they've done. In fact, he talked about it in the context of I think AB testing ads for some of the Zynga products, right?
Yeah.
AI AI's going to become or already is part of the workflows. And I think the reason you do that is because you ultimately believe that's going to make games a bit quicker and easier to make. And then that might mean budgets drop by 10%, 20%, 50%. Dev cycles drop from 10 years to 9 years, 8 years, 5 years, right? I don't know any how true of any of that is. I'm not seeing a world where press X

to create GTA 7. Like, not at all. And I Strauss is really clear about that. But, to have a project that's so uniquely long in gestation and so completely driven by such a volume of staff, like a thousand plus to 1,500 people, this could be the last of its type. I think it's not just talking about the money cuz I think GTA will always probably justify that, maybe. But, I think it I don't know if there's a desire to. When I speak to game developers in their 50s saying, "I might be making my last game." Like, what? Right? And it's like so nobody wants to Nobody wants to be making something for 10 years. They want [laughter] to They want to get it out there and and I know it's an online component and all that kind of stuff, but I wouldn't be surprised if um even at Rockstar, which make these sorts of epic games that they might want to not take so long on the next GTA. And if that involved maybe it's AI that allows them to do it cheaper, maybe it's re-scoping it, making, you know, maybe we can do smaller GTAs, you know, maybe there's other things we can do. Maybe we can do so. I don't know. Whether it's Rockstar or not, I just don't know if we're going to see

many of these sort of games again. I think this is a once-in-a-lifetime entertainment moment.
I I think you could be right. And I think actually Dan Houser spoke about that with the Lex Fridman show where he talked about ideas he had for games that he just knew they would going to never get to make. Uh an example might be something like Agent. It was announced with Sony, never came to fruition. I think he talked about and I might be misremembering this, kind of like uh almost like a Roman era game or like a sort of Viking era game. That feels like inconceivable for Rockstar to make in its current quadruple-A plus model. But, maybe maybe this change.
Yeah. Well, I agree with you, you know. Let's see. Well, I'm out of time. I'm going to quickly run through some of these other Strauss Zelnick quotes cuz these aren't necessarily related to GTA. I asked him about GTA Online cuz it keeps doing better and better and better every quarter. Like, "GTA Online has beaten our expectations" is probably the most boring line I get doing a just Take-Two quarterly. They say it every time. I asked him if he thinks GTA 6 will have a negative impact upon that. And his answer was, "I don't know where GTA Online performance goes after the

release of GTA 6. I have no reason to believe the performance will not continue. That I don't know suggests to me that he thinks it will go down. Um but he talks about, you know, obviously it's done very well. He talked about the safe house in the hills expansion being the most successful one. I just think maybe for that quarter you're going to get a lot of people on. GTA I know I had Twitch on the show last, you know, I had the and they have a lot of GTA role play. They see a lot of that and they do expect when GTA 6 launches they do expect a drop in their in their engagement. I think Take-Two must expect that, too, but hey, maybe it will just people go from GTA 6 to GTA online.
What they've not talked about, obviously, is what GTA 6 means for the GTA online universe and whether there's like we call it on our show GTA 6 online. It might not even be that. It might be some different tier to GTA online. But you can bet there's going to be an online component to GTA 6, which is almost certainly going to have an impact on players of GTA online as we know. They're not going to stop GTA online.

Like they kept GTA online running on PS3 until and I might be again misremembering until something like 2019 2020.
Mhm.
I didn't even know that was possible. But there's an audience, right? And so, yeah, he's you're right. In his codified way I think he's saying kind of better off, right? Let's see.
And to be fair, I think it would be a temporary thing. I also have Red Dead Redemption 2 in the same light because Red Dead Redemption 2 just had its best ever year outside of its launch year. It's on 85 million units, which by the way is mad. Like we sit there because GTA GTA 5 done 230 million. It seems almost like a minnow, but like that's like 10 times Resident Evil, right? It's absolutely phenomenal sales performance for that kind of stuff. It's absolutely bonkers. But I asked him if he if I thought Red Dead Redemption 2 was boosted by the hype behind GTA 6. He doesn't think so. I he thinks he said, "I do think Rockstar Games almost uniquely has a brand position in entertainment because consumers tend to be interested in all of their offerings. But no, I think this stands alone. What we're seeing with Red Dead Redemption 2 is that we have a very

loyal and engaged audience, and they love the title. And by the way, I love the title. We're up to 85 million gamers. Um is he uh which I I can see why. Yeah, not much to comment on.
[laughter]
No, I I I would say with Rockstar Games, I think like their their brand is so strong that when GTA 6 is visible, Rockstar are more visible. I think there's a degree of halo effect. They're They're the one of the few publishers I think that can be said to be true in the same way where if HBO launch a new TV series, you go, "Oh, I should probably check it out." or think about it. They're one of the few I think who have that true prestige mark to what they do.
Yeah, I think that's true, but I also think he's probably right. Red Dead Redemption 2's always done very, very well, and it just keeps doing so. Um I asked him some non-GTA questions. I asked about 2K. This was a bit of a This was a bit of a hostile question for me. And that um we talk about NBA 2K doing really well, and then their sports games do really well. But, 2K as a games label, for me, there's a lot of missteps there. We could talk about that Project Eos. Is it Project Eos games

um they're they're working on which is which is keeps hitting problems. BioShock is delayed and delayed and delayed. I specific examples I gave to Strauss was the Borderlands 4 PC launch. Civ 7 not hitting the mark. You've got to go further back. The LEGO game they did didn't do very well. Midnight Suns didn't do very well, even though it was actually a great game. So, I said to him like, you know, is he is he you know, is he happy there? Has he had to get involved more? He actually gave a very strong defense of them. And I'd take responsibility for any missteps anywhere in our company. The responsibility is with me. That's my job. Borderlands 4 is highly successful. It will be a very profitable lifetime title. Civ 7 was very successful, and it'll be a very profitable lifetime title. Both did face some challenges in their initial release, and those are being addressed. We have just released a very significant update to Civ 7, released updates to Borderlands 4. There is more content coming to both games. I definitely can acknowledge missteps in both releases, but at the same time, it's a great franchise, it's great iterations, and we couldn't be more thrilled of how the business is going broadly. I think 2K's crushing it across the board. If the worst you can say in a year where you've had this kind of

performance is that a couple of titles did slightly less well than we would have hoped, and you're addressing whatever challenges you face, and you're still generating profits with both titles, that's a high-class problem. I'll take those problems any day of the week. He obviously is obviously talking about the last financial year and specifically says Seven of Nine for I don't know. I I I I looked at I look at some of the how long some of these games have been you know BioShock's been absent from the industry for longer than GTA as it pertains to new releases. And it it it it feels um it yeah, I it feels me. I did actually ask him about games taking a long time. And again, he issued a defense there. He said, "I wouldn't confuse long development cycles with a lackadaisical approach to development cycles. Everything we do is in the context of milestones, budgets, and delivery dates. Certain titles are so complex and so challenging to build, they take a long time. It is possible that recent developments in technology to talk about AI here will allow us to compress some development timelines without compromising quality, and we will hope to do that. But everything that we do here is thought out and reasoned. We don't just wait to hear how things are going. We make choices about how we're

going to develop in the context of what our creative teams are trying to achieve and what we believe the market demands in terms of quality in order to deliver a hit." And this is something he said a lot. "We're in the business of making hits. Everything we do is in the service of trying to make a hit."
Yeah, I think you could look at that two ways. I think like one of the framings would be probably the stress we'd look at is actually their their last financial year that they've just reported on and closed was up 19% year-on-year, which is staggering, right? Staggering. And that's a non-GTA year. For context, they are only, and I use massive air quotes here, only anticipating to be 19% year-on-year in the GTA 6 year. Now, it's not exactly a like-for-like, but that shows you the level of performance and how well a game like NBA has done with the current revenues, but I would I could also see an argument where you would say could the Borderlands launch have gone better? Could Civ 7 have gone better? I think there's a lot of people in the industry who say it could have done. And it's not for me to speculate on

where they go next.
Well, yeah, they almost skipped a generation, 2K. There's almost a period of time they didn't release very much at all in that. And then and I do I think Borderlands 4 was was good and I think he's right it'll it'll do well in the fullness of time and and and those sort of things. I just I look at things like Firaxis and it's like at one point they were firing on all cylinders and Civ 7's a good game, but it wasn't quite what fans wanted. Marvel's Midnight Suns was was fantastic, but nobody seemed to want it and I think that's a miss. Who you know, and that's not Firaxis' fault. That's that's whoever was commissioning these or green-lighting these and and Borderlands BioShock taking 13 years and plus and Judas as well. They ain't not I know that's not 2K. We haven't Remember Remember that Ken Levine was doing this to make games faster
[laughter]
and it's but anyway, and those are all my Strauss quotes. I'm we're here mostly to talk about GTA, but Dan I've This was supposed to be quick. I'm so sorry. You've got an important things to do.

You've got your You've got your massive event on June 6th today. And Dan, how can people follow GTA 6 o'clock?
So, you can check us out every We launch a new show every Wednesday at GTA 6:00 p.m. BST. So, check that out on our YouTube channel. Uh you can also subscribe to the GTA 6:00 newsletter, which is via gamesradar.com/newsletter and click on the follow GTA newsletter, which comes out every Friday at GTA 6:00 p.m. BST. Can you see I rehearsed that?
Yeah, it's very good. Thank you, Dan, and thank you to everybody watching from home. If you want to make sure you catch more news analysis inside interviews at the game business, just go to the game business.com, subscribe to our newsletter and you'll receive an update every time we put out a new episode. We will be back next week with a big interview with Embracer, plus our preview of Summer Game Fest. Until then though, thank you for tuning in.