Speaking at the Reuters Media Summit in remarks
reported by the news agency, Take-Two Interactive chairman Strauss Zelnick has reiterated that his plans for the company involve expanding its business not preparing it for sale to a third party, as some analysts have speculated in the past.
According to Zelnick. the company, which also owns
Grand Theft Auto publisher Rockstar Games, is “a very efficient enterprise now” following the introduction of a new management team and the sale of peripheral business Joytech.
"I'm much more interested in growing the business than in selling it, to be clear," said Zelnick. "I would say for the next five to seven years this is a terrific time to be in the video game business. I imagine we will try to find greater efficiencies but they probably won't be through headcount. I imagine headcount will grow. This is a growth business. We are in growth mode."
Although he gave few specific details, Zelnick pointed towards the success of 2K Boston’s
Bioshock as an example of growing the company through original games rather than licensing. "From a specific point of view, what we find most compelling is building up our collection of our intellectual property,” he said. “I'm not really interested in scale for scale's sake.”
Speaking more generally, Zelnick also suggested that in light of increasing development costs, further industry consolidation was likely in the future, predicting that just four to six publishers will ultimately end up dominating the industry.
