Take-Two is the latest company to release their financial results for the last quarter. During their earnings call, the company revealed they have 93 titles in development among their studios, all due to release over the next five years. Of those titles, 46 of them will be from new IPs.
The company’s President Karl Slatoff broke down the numbers in more detail during the earnings call. About half of those titles, 46 to be exact, will be from new IPs. The remaining 47 will be sequels or titles from existing IP, lending more credence to rumors of remasters for titles like the earlier Grand Theft Auto games. As Chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick stated, players expect there to be new IPs despite their continued support for beloved franchises, and if the company didn’t develop new IPs they would effectively be “burning the furniture.”
Core gaming experiences make up 63 of those titles and 13 of them will be casual titles, leaving the remaining 17 to be “sort of mid core arcade style experiences.” Of those titles, 21 will be heading exclusively to mobile, leaving 72 titles planned for console, PC or streaming. Finally, 26 of the titles will be “completely” free-to-play, with 67 titles requiring some sort of purchase.
It all sounds like one of those complicated maths puzzles where you have to work out how many of those titles are core gaming experiences from new IPs that are heading to consoles, but things are never that simple. What we do know is that their future release slate is subject to change as the games get “through various milestones,” so those numbers won’t necessarily be set in stone.
The company did also confirm that they will continue to make single-player experiences as neither Take-Two nor their labels believe that single-player games are dead. When one of their investors asked how the company would manage to create those experiences while avoiding disastrous launches like that of Cyberpunk 2077, Zelnick also explained how Take-Two is “the most self critical group I’ve ever run into”:
How do we maintain our commitment to quality by making sure that our creative teams pursue what they’re passionate about, and don’t pursue something they’re not passionate about and by maintaining operational and financial discipline at the same time. And the effect of that is we can have long development cycles and we’ve been criticized for that.
But I think the case that you’re alluding to reflects the fact that you’re always better served to wait for perfection if you can create perfection. And all of our labels are seeking perfection. And we don’t always succeed, sometimes we fall short. But that’s the goal. And if anything in these times cause us to sharpen our minds further and sharpen our discipline further and try harder.
Take-Two will be leaving the individual developers to reveal details about their upcoming titles, but as soon as we hear anything, we’ll be sure to let you know.
[Source: Take-Two earnings call via Seeking Alpha]
