Zelnick On GTA 6 Hot Topics: Pre-Orders, Absence Of Discs, and Netflix Partnership

7 Aug at 18:36 Comment Views: 0

Alongside the latest quarterly financial report, Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick offered fresh insights into the most pressing topics surrounding GTA 6.

Contents

Release Window
Pre-Order Milestones
The Shift Away from Discs
Collaboration with Netflix

Release Window

Grand Theft Auto VI remains officially on track for its November 19 debut. When asked about his personal plans for launch day, Zelnick teased that he would share his schedule at a later date.

It’s ultra top secret at the moment. But at some point before that I’ll be happy to talk to you about it.

Pre-Order Milestones

When pressed about early sales figures following the launch of pre-orders six weeks ago, management stopped short of sharing hard data. Instead, the CEO characterized the demand as “exceptional” and performing “vastly” ahead of internal projections. Zelnick defended withholding exact figures, noting a desire to avoid giving misleading signals to investors.

The Shift Away from Discs

Addressing the controversial decision by Rockstar Games to bypass physical media for GTA 6, the company head remained remarkably firm in his stance.

Our business is well over 90% digitally distributed. It’s already a digital business. So in certain instances, especially if it’s a big game, discs just — and note I said discs — don’t really make sense for the consumer.

Also, most instances you have to register online to play anyhow. So if you’re already connected, who cares if you download digitally? It’s all the same and it’s much more convenient.

So that’s where the world is going in our opinion and I think Sony understands that. We certainly understand that. It doesn’t mean that we won’t have physical additions now and then, I’m sure we will in the same way that there’s still vinyl in the recorded music business. But in other instances, it just won’t make sense.

While this strategic direction hardly comes as a shock, the uncompromising tone was somewhat unexpected—particularly in light of community backlash following news regarding the phasing out of PlayStation game discs.

Collaboration with Netflix

Zelnick also touched upon the recently unveiled project, Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look, developed in partnership with Netflix. While specific terms of the agreement were kept under wraps, he praised the streaming titan as an invaluable collaborator and hinted at a landmark event.