Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has shed some light on the future of several franchises the publisher currently has under its belt, including hints at what we can expect from the BioShock and Red Dead series. Speaking at the Cowen and Company analyst conference, and as reported by GameSpot, Zelnick was asked why Take-Two does not take the same approach as some other publishers, flooding the market with new games rather than taking the more selective angle that Take-Two currently holds. “The risk of just [releasing more games] is that you end up just bulking up your release schedule and that isn’t really what consumers want,” Zelnick explained. “Consumers want better, not more.” “So our selective approach, which we’ve taken since 2007 I think has paid off,” he continued. “Now, we have gotten more by taking that approach; we’ve launched one new successful franchise every year and I would like to keep doing that particularly because I talk about permanent franchises, but not everything is going to be a permanent franchise. Some of our great franchises eventually will lose their luster and some will hopefully be permanent.” Grand Theft Auto, for example, is an “obvious” permanent franchise for Take-Two according to Zelnick, while Borderlands and the NBA series also fall under this permanent umbrella.
And Zelnick added that “it seems quite obvious that Red Dead is a permanent franchise,” while BioShock is “important [and] certainly something that we’re focused on.” The future of the BioShock franchise was left up in the air earlier this year, as Irrational Games co-founder Ken Levine revealed that the studio was shutting down. “We haven’t given any color on how you should think about it yet except we do believe it’s beloved,” Zelnick noted of BioShock, adding that 2K Marin has been put in charge of the franchise’s future. This comes as a surprise, given that 2K Marin was gutted at the end of 2013, with some staff laid off, and others reallocated to other 2K studios. Of course, BioShock 2 was developed by 2K Marin. “I think there’s a lot of upside in that franchise,” Zelnick added of BioShock. “It hasn’t necessarily been realized yet. And the question for the future, assuming we decide to answer the question, would be ‘How do you stay true to that creatively?'” You can read all of Zelnick’s comments on GameSpot.