The CEO of Take-Two Interactive, owner of Rockstar [297 articles]”href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/companies/take-two-interactive/ “> Take-Two discussed the company’s approach to remastering older titles and its efforts to differentiate itself from its competitors in this area.
Rockstar is preparing to bring a remastered version of Grand Theft Auto V to the PlayStation 5 [1,139 articles]”href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/playstation/ps5/ “> PS5 and Xbox Series X | S [914 articles]”href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/xbox/scarlett/ “> Xbox Series X / S in the second half of the 2021 calendar
Speaking during Morgan Stanley’s Technology, Media and Telecom Conference on Wednesday (transcribed by VGC), the head of Take-Two, Strauss Zelnick [52 articles]”href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/people/strauss-zelnick/ “> Strauss Zelnick was asked how he feels about remasters potentially becoming a bigger part of the company’s strategy going forward.
“I’m not sure if there will be a bigger part of the strategy,” he replied. “Remastering has always been part of the strategy. We did it differently from the competition – we didn’t just transfer titles, we actually took the time to do the best job possible, making the title different for the new release, for the new technology we’re releasing on.
“So we improve the technology, update the visuals and make performance improvements. Which is why I think our remastered titles generally work so well.
Regarding the next version of the next generation GTAV console, Zelnick said he is confident that the remastering will provide a strong experience for players.
“We did very well with the Mafia series, for example, and Grand Theft Auto [V] it is now entering its third generation, which is incredible, he said.
“It was a flagship when it was launched, it continued to be the flagship in the second generation, we will see how Grand Theft Auto will perform in the next generation. Obviously, I’m confident that Rockstar will offer a great experience, but you can’t do that if you’re just doing a simple conversion. “
During Take-Two’s third quarter earnings conference call in February, Zelnick offered a non-committal answer when asked about the potential for remastering old Grand Theft Auto games.
In a question and answer session, an analyst suggested that it was likely that a significant portion of GTAV players had never played the previous games in the series. Given Grand Theft Auto’s huge appetite for content, he asked about Take-Two’s perspective on future remastering.
“It is an excellent and encouraging question,” replied Zelnick. “I’m inclined to make this more of a statement than a question and any updates to our release schedule will come from Rockstar Games [133 articles]”href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/companies/take-two-interactive/rockstar-games/ “> Rockstar Games.”
Zelnick launched this line again on Wednesday when asked during the Morgan Stanley conference whether he could provide an update on when Grand Theft Auto 6 will be released.
“So, Rockstar has not announced any new titles for the market and when there is an announcement to be made, it will come from Rockstar, so I will probably leave it there, and I don’t think you would expect anything different from me,” he said.
Grand Theft Auto V sold more than 140 million units, with the game selling more copies in 2020 than in any other year, except in 2013, when it was released for PlayStation 3 [304 articles]”href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/playstation/ps3/ “> PS3 and Xbox 360 [319 articles]”href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/xbox/x360/ “> Xbox 360, according to Take-Two.