Strauss Zelnick, the head of GTA publisher Take-Two, has rejected the idea that his studio’s games could end up on Game Pass on day one of their release, suggesting such an idea isn’t “rational”.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Zelnick says he expects that including day-one releases on a subscription service will “push consumers to that subscription service for at least a period of time”.
However, he goes on to say that Microsoft’s decision to include games like Call of Duty on Game Pass on day one “won’t affect [Take-Two’s] decisions” because the publisher’s decisions are “rational”.
Zelnick’s stance echoes comments he made back in 2022, when he said that including day-one AAA releases on a subscription service “doesn’t make any sense to [Take-Two]” because he thinks it represents “turn[ing] our business upside down in a way that doesn’t make sense economically”.
With that in mind, if you were hoping to see GTA 6 arriving on Game Pass on day one when it launches next year, or even a few months down the line, you may want to stop holding out hope for that happening.
These comments come after Take-Two released its financial summary for the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year, showing small gains in the areas of net bookings and net revenue.
Take-Two points to NBA 2K24 and GTA 5, as well as its online component GTA Online, as the main drivers of the increase in net bookings, and those games were also the key drivers behind the revenue increase, with Red Dead Redemption 2 and Red Dead Online also contributing.
In light of these numbers, Zelnick also told GamesIndustry.biz that he thinks his studio is in the right place when it comes to the market, pointing to recent cost-cutting measures as part of “tun[ing] up” the studio’s “efficiency”.
Those cost-cutting measures appear to include the closure of Roll7 and Intercept Games, the studios behind OlliOlli World and Kerbal Space Program 2, although Zelnick himself denied reports that the studios were closed when asked.
When it comes to Take-Two’s future pipeline, plenty of games are in the works. Between the 2025 and 2027 fiscal years, the company intends to release tentpole games like Civilization 7, new games in the WWE 2K and NBA 2K franchises, and GTA 6.
Take-Two’s financial presentation slideshow also says that Judas, the next game from BioShock‘s Ken Levine, will launch at some point in this broad release window, although it’s seemingly too early for the publisher to commit to a definitive time period for Judas‘ release. Stay tuned for more on this.
